Bank Job

by James Heneghan

  I tucked the umbrella under my arm and headed for the corner to cross Commercial Drive. A hand on my shoulder pulled me back and my heart stopped.

  “Hold it, kid! Show me that umbrella of yours.”

  I was too stunned to move. A man grabbed the umbrella, turned it over and shook it with one hand while he kept a grip on my upper arm with the other.

  My arm and shoulder hurt.

  He was dressed in a dark suit and wore a tie. His face was wet from the rain. I knew he was from the bank and that he must have seen Billy make his handoff into my umbrella.

  When he found nothing he looked puzzled. He hurled the umbrella to the ground, grabbed my shoulders and shook me with both hands. “Where’s the money, you little crook? What did you do with it?”

  My teeth rattled. I couldn’t speak.

  “Thief!” he yelled in my ear. “Dirty little brat. Where is it?”

  “No!” I yelled. His fingers were steel claws biting into my arms. I tried to pull away from him but his grip was unyielding. “Not me.”

  “Liar! I saw you! Outside the bank. I saw you… Scum! That’s what you are—thieving scum!”

  “You’re crazy! Let me go! You’re hurting me. I don’t know anything. You got me mixed up with someone else. Ouch! Let go of me! Help!” I yelled loud as I could. “Help!”

  People were staring.

  I screamed at him, “You’re hurting me!”

  He darted a glance at the onlookers. A shadow of uncertainty flashed across his face. His grip loosened. I spun away quickly and lashed out with my right foot, nailing him on the shin—bull’s-eye. I followed it up with a fast kick to his other shin.

  “Aaargh!” he screamed, hopping about in pain.

  I charged into him like a line backer, shoulder forward, and he fell to the pavement. Then I grabbed Janice’s umbrella and zipped across the street, less than ten feet in front of a bus—I could hear the astonished squeal of brakes. I didn’t look back. I dashed into the SkyTrain station and hurled myself up the escalator. I was lucky—a train was just pulling in. Panting, I mingled with the people boarding the train. I looked behind me. Nobody was after me. The bell gave its three-tone ring and the doors closed with a hiss.

  Trembling and breathless, I collapsed into an empty seat and doubled over. My arms hurt. My stomach churned.

  The train surged forward.

  I was safe.

  I had almost been caught, almost handed over to the police.

  I was terrified.

  “What happened?”

  Billy and Tom were waiting for me.

  “You look like you’ve been crying,” said Tom, cracking his knuckles furiously.

  I was so upset that I wasn’t able to sit on the beanbag, so I paced the room as I told my story.

  “Please stop with that,” Billy said to Tom when I had finished.

  “What?”

  “The bones.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Were you really crying?” asked Billy. “Or were you faking it?”

  “Crying? Me? No way. But I’ll admit I was scared all right. I was sure I was about to be hauled off to jail.”

  “Nails, you had nothing on you but a harmless umbrella,” said Billy. “There was nothing to connect you with the robbery.”

  “Except a witness,” said Tom.

  “Unreliable,” said Billy. “He had no proof. What happened to your shopping bag anyway?”

  I told him.

  “A series of unfortunate events,” Tom said. “How much did we make?” he asked Billy.

  Billy reached underneath his pillow and tossed the money onto the bed.

  I counted it. Three hundred and fifty dollars. All that stress and aggravation for a mere three hundred and fifty bucks? I threw it back onto the bed. Nobody said anything.

  A SkyTrain clattered by underneath the window.

  EIGHTEEN

  APRIL 28

  A few days had gone by since our last holdup, and Billy had said nothing about our next one. Not a word. It was like he’d suddenly forgotten about our sacred mission. He acted strange the rest of the week, going around with a long face and talking to hardly anyone. He got home from school late every day, making it just in time for supper. If it wasn’t his turn on kitchen duty, he headed straight up to his room after dinner.

  Janice knew something, but she wasn’t letting on.

  “What’s up with the big guy?” Tom asked me on the bus Friday morning. Billy was sitting up front, plugged into his earphones and staring out the window.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s sick or something.”

  “I don’t think he’s sick. But he lies in bed every night staring at the ceiling, not saying anything. You should talk to him, Nails. Find out what’s going on. Maybe we can help him.”

  I didn’t get a chance to talk to Billy, but when I got out of my last class the next day, Billy was waiting for me in the hall. “I need you to come somewhere with me, okay?”

  I grabbed my coat out of my locker and followed him.

  “Where are we going?”

  He had his hands shoved deep into his pockets and he was looking straight ahead. He mumbled something, but a truck splashed by and I couldn’t hear what he said.

  “Where did you say?”

  “Hospital.”

  “Why? You sick or something?”

  “’Course not. They said I could bring someone, a friend.”

  “They? Who? Billy, tell me why we’re going to the hospital.”

  He looked down at me. “It’s my dad,” he said, louder.

  “Your dad? You’ve got a dad?”

  Just a week ago, Billy said he hadn’t seen his dad in a long time, so I figured he was probably dead. His mom had disappeared a few years ago—never came back from visiting a friend. She just vanished without a trace.

  By now we had reached the SkyTrain station. We slid our passes into the slot, and I followed him into the crowd standing near the tracks waiting for the westbound train.

  “So what’s this about your dad?” I asked him.

  “He’s…”

  The train arrived and the doors slid open. We pushed inside with the rest of the crowd, then we were separated by two old women gabbing in loud voices.

  “…thinks I should get a tint,” shouted one old woman with puffy grey hair. “Put in some red highlights, she said. I’ll look stylish, she said.”

  “Oh no! Don’t do it.” The other old crone shook her head. She was wearing a wooly tea-cozy for a hat. “She’s just after your money. Besides, once you start coloring your hair, you have to keep on doing it, you know. The expense. Oh, the terrible expense.”

  Billy stood, hanging on to the rail. I moved quickly into a vacant seat beside a woman with long dark hair. It was no use trying to talk to Billy here.

  We got to Joyce Street Station and the dark-haired woman got off. I stood while Billy slid in next to the window. Then I sat beside him.

  “Tell me about your dad.”

  He shook his head. “Later.” He turned away and looked out the window.

  When we stopped at Broadway Station, Billy didn’t move. So I knew we weren’t going to Vancouver General Hospital.

  At Burrard Street Station, Billy sat and looked out at the platform. A bunch of giggling teens made their way to the escalator. This was the stop for St. Paul’s Hospital. We had run out of hospitals.

  “Shouldn’t we be getting off?” I asked him.

  He shook his head.

  There was only one more stop, and I was beginning to think I hadn’t heard Billy right. Maybe he’d said hostel, not hospital. But what about Lions Gate Hospital on the North Shore? Maybe we were heading for the SeaBus.

  We were at the end of the line, Waterfront Station. I followed Billy off the train, up the escalator and out onto Cordova Street. So it wasn’t to be Lions Gate. Billy steered me east through the rain towards Gastown. He didn’t say a word. I was beginning to worry. Had he lost it? Had his mind sudden
ly flipped? We left Gastown behind and marched along Water Street onto Powell. Everyone walked past a man lying unconscious in a shop doorway, cradling a wine bottle in his arms. This was the downtown eastside where the drunks and the drug addicts and the homeless people hung out. Well, we were criminals now. We belonged here.

  We came to a small brick building with a sign planted in the scruffy grass: May’s Place in big letters, and underneath that, The May Gutteridge Community Home.

  “Come on,” Billy said, leading the way through the door. He stopped at a small reception desk and an older woman with white hair and a nurse’s uniform flashed him a saintly smile. “Hello, Billy,” she said. “Hang your coats on the rack and go right up.”

  I followed Billy up a flight of stairs and down a hall. This had to be the smallest hospital in the world. The doors were open. I counted six beds, one per room, all occupied. I turned my eyes away, trying not to stare. Billy had obviously been here before. He stopped in front of an open door, and we went in. The small room smelled of disinfectant. The walls were painted a light blue. A window looked out at another building. In the bed was a geezer with his eyes closed. He looked like he might be dead. Then I remembered why we were here. This geezer was Billy’s dad.

  Billy pulled two chairs over to the bed, one on each side, and sat in the one close to the window. I sat, wondering what I was doing here. I hated hospitals.

  The room was silent.

  “Funny little hospital,” I whispered.

  Billy looked at me from the other side of his dad’s bed. “It’s a hospice.”

  “A hospice?”

  “For the downtown eastside people.”

  Then I remembered that a hospice is a place where people go to die.

  Billy said, “He’s got cancer real bad. The doctor told me it’s only a matter of days.”

  I had never been in a room with a dying person before. It was a bit scary. I imagined Death dressed in black, hovering over the bed like a filmy ghost, waiting to take Billy’s dad away.

  I looked at the frail old man’s face. He looked pinched and pale and had thin bloodless lips. I saw no resemblance to Billy whatsoever.

  “Your dad lived around here?”

  “Yeah. I just found out. Few days ago. He’s been here three weeks. Social Services called Janice. My old man had put me down as his next of kin.”

  On his birthday, Billy said that his dad had been a big guy who wore a leather jacket like the one I gave him. Maybe the man sleeping in the bed had been big once, but he wasn’t big now. “Was that the last time you saw him, when you were little and he gave you rides on his motorcycle?”

  Billy nodded. “One day he went off on his motorcycle, and I never saw him again.”

  A nurse with short black hair came in, smiled at us, looked at the sleeping man, took his pulse and left.

  We sat in silence for a long time. Billy’s dad didn’t wake up.

  I got pins and needles in my legs.

  Billy sighed. Then he leaned toward the bed. “We better be going, Dad,” he said in the old man’s ear.

  His dad didn’t move. His faint breathing was barely detectable.

  We left.

  Walking back to Waterfront Station in the rain, I said, “Why did you want me to come with you, Billy?”

  “I dunno. It helps.” He shrugged awkwardly. “When he’s awake he never talks, just looks at me. Or he turns his head away and looks at the wall. One day I was there and he cried. I ask him things, but he never answers, never says anything. Just looks at me. I thought if you were there he might say something. A pretty girl in the room might make him talk, you know?”

  I didn’t say anything. I felt like crying.

  We went again the next morning, not talking much during the forty minute trip. The sky train was quiet, even for a Saturday. I’d never seen Billy so down.

  The same nurse was at the desk. “Doctor Watterson just left, Billy. Your father is sleeping comfortably.”

  We sat down and waited to see if he’d wake up. The room was brighter than yesterday. We didn’t whisper this time but talked in our normal voices.

  “Have you talked with this Dr. Watterson?”

  Billy nodded.

  “Does he know anything about your dad’s life— before he came here?”

  “He was a regular customer at Mental Health Services where Dr. Watterson works. My dad’s an alcoholic. But he had friends. He tried to help other people like himself. And Dr. Watterson tried to help him.”

  I got an eerie feeling someone else was in the room, and then I noticed that Billy’s dad was awake. He stared at Billy with bright blue eyes. There was no mistaking those eyes. He suddenly looked like Billy.

  “Hi, Dad,” Billy said quietly.

  His dad continued to stare but said nothing. Then his eyes switched to me like a question mark.

  “This is my friend, Nails. She’s in my foster. Her real name is Nell.”

  The old man tried to speak. The effort caused his thin chest to heave and his brow to wrinkle like corrugated cardboard. He managed to whisper, “Nell.”

  I smiled. “Hi.”

  His eyes turned to his son. “Billy,” he croaked. He tried to say more but couldn’t. He closed his eyes and sank back into his pillow.

  Billy talked to him, but there was no response.

  He was asleep again.

  I asked Billy, “Was it weird seeing him here like this after all these years? Aren’t you mad at him for leaving you?”

  Billy’s eyes widened. “Mad? No, I don’t think so. Not mad. I feel sorry for him, that’s all, for wasting his life.”

  “What about what he did to your life?”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t have a dad when I needed one. He did that to me. Maybe I should be mad, but I’m not. He was weak, that’s all. I won’t ever be weak like him. I’ve promised myself that.”

  The nurse at the desk downstairs beamed one of her saintly smiles at us as we left.

  By now, Tom knew the cause of Billy’s troubles.

  “Want to come with us, Tom?” said Billy on Sunday afternoon.

  “Okay,” said Tom. “If you’re sure you want me to come.”

  This time when we got to the hospice, the doctor and nurse were in the room with Billy’s dad, so we had to wait. When they came out, the doctor said, “I’ve given him something to make him comfortable, Billy.”

  The doctor seemed nice. He was wearing a gray tracksuit and running shoes.

  We all went in and sat. The old man’s eyes were closed. His breath came in quick raspy puffs. He opened his eyes and looked at Billy, and without moving his head he looked at me. Then his eyes went back to his son. He didn’t seem to notice Tom. He tried to speak, but all that came out was a grunt. He slowly reached a frail hand out to Billy. Billy clasped his father’s hand in his own big fist and moved closer.

  His dad made a single powerful effort to speak. “Billy?”

  Billy stared into his father’s eyes. “What is it, Dad?”

  The old man gathered a second breath. “I’m… sorry…Billy.”

  Billy wrapped his arms around his father and hugged him to his chest. He spoke a few words into his dad’s ear. Then he laid him gently back onto the pillow.

  I couldn’t hear what Billy said because of his father’s rattling breath.

  The old man’s eyes closed, and in a second he was asleep, the wrinkles gone and the beginning of a smile on his thin lips.

  Billy decided to stay, so Tom and I made our way home, mainly in silence. Tom stared out the SkyTrain window. When we we got to Patterson and stood by the door, waiting to get off, I caught a glimpse of Tom’s eyes. They were damp and pink, like he’d been crying. He’d been thinking about Billy’s dad, I guessed. Or remembering his own dad—his lost family.

  Billy stayed at the hospice all night and came home the next morning while we were eating breakfast. His face was white. He looked beat.

  Janice jumped up from the table to meet him. “How is
he, Billy?”

  Billy said nothing and stood looking at Janice helplessly.

  We all knew.

  Janice flung her arms around Billy. Joseph stood and put his arms around Billy and Janice’s shoulders. Tom, Lisa, and I joined the group, looping our arms around each other in a family hug. For a brief few days, Billy had a bit of family with his dad. Now his dad was gone, and we were back to being his only family again.

  NINETEEN

  MAY 4

  We skipped out of school early again and rode the SkyTrain to the big city.

  The Three Musketeers.

  I had a bad feeling about this holdup.

  We were socked in with the usual West Coast— “wet” coast—rain and a cold wind that went right through my wet raincoat and chilled my bones. I was probably getting the flu or mad cow disease or something equally terrible. I had a crushing headache and my nose was running.

  We took our positions, Billy outside the Vancity Savings Bank, me close by and Tom out of sight around the corner.

  This was our seventh bank robbery. Wasn’t seven supposed to be an unlucky number?

  I sniffed and searched my pockets for a tissue. I had none. I wiped my nose on my jacket sleeve like a little kid. The waterproof fabric rejected the mucus, leaving the smear on my face.

  From my lookout under the Shoe Warehouse awning, I could see the bank was busy. It was an end-of-the-month Thursday. Maybe Billy’s planning wasn’t as good as he thought. Or maybe he chose a busy bank day deliberately to raise the bar on his excitement index.

  A guy was hanging out in a beige Honda across the street. He sat behind the wheel, sipping coffee from a plastic cup and watching people going in and out of the shops. He looked across at Billy.

  Was he a detective? Had the police finally caught up with us?