Prince of Thieves

by Chuck Hogan

  But his mind was wandering again. He focused on the tablecloths, their bright coral pinkness reflected in the water glasses like floating lilies. Outside the right-hand wall of windows, the dreary street was drawn in charcoal pencil, smudged by the all-morning drizzle.

  Frawley's and Dino's pagers went off at the same time. Frawley sat back to read the display on his hip, showing the Lakeville office phone number, followed by the code 91A. The FBI offense code for bank robbery was 091. A was shorthand for "armed."

  Dino had his phone, Frawley rising with him, both of them in suits for the meeting, moving away from the tables. Dino held his phone elbow high, as though cell-phone use required a more formal technique than regular telephones.

  "Ginny," he said. "Dean Drysler.... Uh-huh.... Okay. When was that?" He stepped to the wall, looking out the weeping windows to the western end of Beacon. "Got it." He hung up, turned to Frawley. "Note-passer. Just happened. Claimed gun but didn't show."

  "Okay." Hardly anything to shake them out of a meeting for. "So?"

  "Coolidge Corner BayBanks, intersection of Beacon and Harvard." He pointed out the window. "Two blocks that way, across the street."

  Frawley tensed, then looked for the door to the lobby. "I'm gonna run."

  Frawley was out of the room fast, new-shoe-running over a slippery carpet into the lobby, blowing past the doorman in his silly vest and out into the gray mist. Down a steep, turnaround driveway, across busy Beacon against the light, then following a low fence along the trolley tracks until he could cross the slick inbound lane of Beacon ahead of onrushing traffic, up the rising sidewalk past a Kinko's and a post office and a whole-foods market.

  He covered the quarter-mile in no time, arriving outside the corner bank with his hand on his shoulder piece. The sight of a dapper man dancing back and forth there with keys in his hand, searching hooded faces, told Frawley the thief was already gone. Frawley drew his creds out of his jacket, flapped it open.

  "My God, you got here fast," said the branch manager, silver eyeglasses perched ornamentally on his face.

  "How long?" said Frawley.

  "One, two minutes. I came almost right out after him."

  Frawley scanned in all four directions, the intersection calm in the rain, no one reacting to a man running, no cars tearing out of handicapped parking spaces. "You don't see him?"

  The manager craned his neck until the rain specks on his glasses made him draw back under the overhang. "Nowhere."

  "What'd he have, a hat? Sunglasses?"

  "Yes. Scarf around his neck, tucked into his jacket, to his chin. A caramel brown chenille."

  "Gloves?"

  "I don't know. Can we go back inside?"

  Frawley saw blue cruiser lights about a half mile up the inbound lane, cars pulling over for them. "After you," said Frawley.

  It was a handsome old bank, well-appointed, underlit. Customer service was corralled in the center by a low, wood-railed office gate with a thigh-high swinging door. Green-shade banker lamps illuminated boxy computer monitors. The teller booths and a currency-exchange window lined the rear.

  The customers and service reps stopped their buzzing, all eyes turning to the manager and the overdressed FBI agent. In back, the tellers had left their windows to huddle with their co-worker in the rightmost window.

  "Make the announcement," said Frawley.

  "Yes," said the manager. "Umm-- everyone? I'm sorry to say that there's been a robbery here just now, and-- "

  A collective gasp.

  "Yes, I'm afraid so, and we're going to have to suspend our transactions for at least an hour"-- a confirming glance at Frawley-- "or two, perhaps even just a bit more, so please, if you would, bear with us for a few minutes, and we'll have you on your way."

  Frawley's call for a show of hands of anyone who'd seen the bandit leave the bank got him nowhere. Customers are usually never aware that a note job is going down until afterward when the manager locks the front door.

  Dino arrived at the same time the police did, shaking their hands and generally keeping them out of the way while the manager let Frawley in back with the tellers.

  "CCTV or stills?"

  "What?" said the manager.

  "Close circuit cameras or-- " Frawley looked up and answered his own question. The video cameras were placed too high on the wall. "Those aren't even going to get under his hat brim," Frawley said, pointing. "Seven and a half feet high, max-- make sure those get lowered. Do they slow to sixty frames after the alarm is punched?"

  "I-- I don't know."

  The others remained huddled around the rightmost teller, hands of support on her shoulders and back. She was an Asian woman in her midthirties, Vietnamese perhaps, tears dripping off her round chin and spotting her salmon silk shirt, her nude nylon knees chunky and trembling.

  Her top drawer was open, its slots still full of cash. "How much did he get?" asked Frawley.

  A woman wearing a long hair braid of gray and silver answered, "Nothing."

  "Nothing?" said Frawley.

  "She froze. She's a trainee, this is her second day. I saw she was in trouble, and I saw the note. I hit my hand alarm."

  The note lay just inside the window slot, scribbled on a white paper napkin, wrinkled like a love letter held too long in a sweaty hand. "Did you touch this?"

  "No," said the Vietnamese teller. "Yes-- when he first pass it to me."

  "Was he wearing gloves?"

  The head teller answered for her. "No."

  "Anybody see the gun?"

  The Vietnamese teller shook her head. "He said bomb."

  "Bomb?" said Frawley.

  "Bomb," said the head teller. "He was carrying a satchel on his shoulder."

  The note read, in a shaky, frightened slant, "I have a BOMB ! Put ALL MONEY in bag." Then, larger, bolder: "PLEASE NO ALARMS OR ELSE!!!"

  The word please jumped out at Frawley. "A satchel?"

  The head teller said, "Like half a backpack. Not businessy. Gray."

  Frawley lifted out his capped felt pen and used it to flip the note. On the back was the familiar pink and orange Dunkin' Donuts logo. Dino appeared on the other side of the teller window like a customer. "Still smell the coffee," said Dino. "There's one across the street here-- right, ladies? And you can see the bank from the window, correct?"

  Yes, mm-hmm, they all nodded.

  Frawley said, "He sat there and wrote out the note, crossed the street with it in his hand inside his pocket...."

  "Impulse, maybe," said Dino. "Not a hypo."

  "Not a bomber either." Frawley turned back to the Vietnamese teller. "The note mentions a bag. The same bag the bomb was in?"

  She was sniffling now. "No, a white bag, trash bag. He took with him."

  "And just left? Walked right out?"

  She turned to the head teller then. "I need the lady room now."

  The head teller said to Frawley, "He got nervous. I think it was me noticing him. He turned right on his heels."

  Frawley looked back at Dino. "Guy needs money, like now."

  Dino nodded. "Trolley's free outbound from here."

  Frawley said to the head teller, "What's the next bank down the line?"

  "A... another BayBanks branch. Washington Square."

  Dino said, "Ladies, I need their telephone number, pronto."

  Frawley was moving past the head teller toward the opened security door. "Hat? Jacket?" he said over his shoulder.

  "Bucket hat," she answered. "Some kind of golf thing on the crest. Jacket was short, tight. Heavy for spring, but not cheap. Hunter green-- he dressed nice."

  "Dino?" said Frawley, moving fast.

  Dino waved him on, picking up a phone, "Go, go."

  Frawley stopped on the wet curb outside. Dino's Taurus was pulled up there, his grille blues and headlamps flashing. Double-parked cruisers had jammed up traffic in all four directions.

  A trolley came clanging up the rise, the only thing moving. Frawley crossed the street and ran to in
tercept it, darting inside the opened doors. "I need you to go straight through to Washington Square," he told the toothpick-chewing conductor.

  The guy squinted doubtfully at Frawley's creds. "Small badge."

  "It's real enough." This was Frawley's first commandeered vehicle. "Let's go."

  The driver thought a moment, then shrugged and closed the doors. "Fine by me."

  The trolley nosed through the honking cars, gaining speed past the intersection, passing boutiques, a high-end pastry shop, a RadioShack, apartment houses.

  "So what kinda money you people make?" the driver asked.

  "Huh?" said Frawley, standing next to him, heart pounding, creds still in hand. "Less than you probably."

  "Any overtime?"

  "Mandatory ten-hour day."

  "Thought you guys supposed to be smart."

  The driver sounded his horn as they failed to slow for waiting raincoats and umbrellas at the next stop. "Hello, excuse me!" said a woman behind Frawley, grocery bags sagging at her feet like sleepy dogs.

  "FBI's driving the car now, ma'am," said the driver.

  They blew another stop to a chorus of middle fingers. Then, suddenly, the roadside on Frawley's right separated from the track, rising on a hill above them. "Hey! Where's that going?"

  "It'll be back, don't worry," said the driver. "Listen. You people gotta unionize. It's every American's right."

  "Yeah, noted," said Frawley, looking for the road. "Where the hell is Washington Square?"

  "Washington Square, next stop!" sang out the driver.

  The roadside plummeted back down to realign with them, the joined road opening into another intersection. Frawley saw the green and white BayBanks sign on the near right corner. The trolley braked, wheels squealing, turning every head in the square-- but none so dramatically as that of the man in the green jacket, tan scarf, and bucket hat exiting the bank door with a travel satchel on his shoulder, a white plastic trash bag in his hand.

  The nature of his work dictated that Frawley dealt almost exclusively with crime scenes. In his eight years of chasing bank bandits, he had never once witnessed one in action.

  "Open!" said Frawley, banging on the door. The driver opened it before he stopped, and Frawley jumped out and hit the ground running, sprinting into the intersection, suit jacket flapping, darting around cars.

  The suspect strode across the side street as though unaware of this man yelling, "Hey!" and running after him. A car in Frawley's way forced him to go wide and intercept the suspect at the far curb.

  Up close, the guy looked like a blank, not at all menacing, a nose and a mouth under a gray rain hat, big sunglasses, and the coiled caramel scarf. The L.L. Bean walking shoes, mossy corduroys, and gray travel bag-- those did not compute. Not your standard note-passing outfit. Frawley was close enough to him now to see loose fifties static-pressed against the white, one-ply trash bag hanging limp in his left hand.

  "Hold it!" said Frawley, one hand opened toward the man, his other up on the butt of his holstered gun. The suspect's jacket was zipped to the collar; any move he made would have to be a clumsy one. "FBI," announced Frawley, feeling good as he said it, the suspect stopped before him in the light, misting rain.

  There was a crackling sound that was almost fuselike, coming from somewhere on the suspect. Frawley remembered the guy's bomb threat-- then the sidewalk went blind red.

  Frawley reeled backward, certain the guy had exploded into pieces in front of him. Something struck him hard-- the pavement-- and his throat began to burn, eyes stinging and tearing. He brought one hand in front of his face and saw it painted red.

  Frawley tried to right himself on the sidewalk, his respiratory system closing up on him. Through slitted eyes he saw the suspect on the move, stumbling backward, tripping off the curb. Something fluttered up into Frawley's face like a bloody bird and he fought it off-- then another, and another, one sticking to his hand. Gray-green and red. He held it before his swelling eyes, trying to focus.

  It was a fifty-dollar bill, stained and burned.

  A dye pack. Not a bomb but half an ounce of red dye and tear gas bursting from a tiny, pressurized CO2 canister sandwiched inside a hollowed-out stack of retired bills.

  Frawley turned on his knee, forcing open his bleary eyes and seeing the dappled bills fluttering across the square like fall leaves off a money tree. The red-splashed trash bag tumbled empty and dreamlike toward the stalled Green Line trolley.

  Frawley got to his feet. He found his way off the curb. His pace grew more certain with every step, and he yelled both to stop the suspect and to keep his airway open.

  The form before him trailed a long scarf. Something small lay in the road-- the dropped satchel-- and Frawley followed the vague shape between two parked cars. It turned right at the end of a fence, the fringed scarf slithering away.

  A chorus of high-pitched screams as Frawley reached the corner. An elementary-school playground, Frawley's appearance sending them squealing toward the school.

  The sight of the children slowed the suspect just enough for Frawley to dive for the end of the scarf, clotheslining the guy, bringing him down. Frawley got on him fast, wrestling the guy's flailing arms behind him and kneeing his face into the turf.

  Frawley carried no handcuffs. He hadn't collared anyone without an arrest warrant since his first office assignment. He whipped off the perp's gloves and squeezed the guy's thumbs together, pulling up hard on his arms, immobilizing him with pain.

  The guy spat something into the dirt. "What?" said Frawley, adrenalized to the max, ears ringing, nose running.

  "Shoot me," the guy said. Frawley realized then that the guy wasn't fighting him, only sobbing.

  Sirens coming now. Kids still dropping off the monkey bars, Frawley yelling at teachers to get them indoors. He eased up on the guy, unwinding the muddy scarf from his neck. The guy looked maybe forty, despairing, already ashamed.

  "Mortgage or sick kid?" said Frawley.

  "Huh?" the guy sniffed.

  "Mortgage or sick kid?"

  A defeated, wincing sigh between sobs: "Mortgage."

  Frawley fished out his creds yet again, holding the gold badge high for the screaming cruisers. "Should have refinanced."

  The cops came up all loaded for bear, weapons drawn, and Frawley shielded the bandit with his body, bellowing at them, "It's okay, back off!"

  They finally holstered, Frawley so furious by then that he snatched a pair of handcuffs out of one of the patrolmen's hands and hooked up the bandit himself. Then he stalked off toward the now vacant playground, stopping at the short fence, wiping his draining eyes and nose on his suit sleeve and checking himself out. The suit was ruined, his shoes, belt, and tie, all stained. He rubbed at his left hand, his palm a bright red, the clinging aerosol powder already adhered to his skin. He looked up to clear his vision and found rows of little faces at the classroom windows, teachers trying to pull them away. He touched his own face, cringing, fearing the worst.

  Dino was climbing out of his Taurus, hustling across the sidewalk toward Frawley, then seeing Frawley was okay, slowing down. "Now this," he said, baring dentures perfect and white, "is a definite first."

  Frawley held his arms out from his sides as though he were soaking wet. "You okay there, Dean?" Frawley said, congested. "All that getting in and out of the car, I was worried."

  Dino took in the full view. "Everything but the paint can over the head. Do me a favor? Hold out your gold badge like this, say, 'Jerry Lewis, FBI.' "

  Frawley showed him a brilliant red middle finger instead. He looked back to the bandit, now bent over a cruiser for a pat-down, his ear to the hood like it was whispering his children's future. Then they straightened him up, folding him sobbing into a cruiser.

  Dino said, coming up next to Frawley, "Fun job, innit?"

  11

  Jay's on the Corner

  NEW DRY CLEANERS WERE popping up all over the Town. The modern career woman required first and foremost a depen
dable local launderer. So much so, even old-style wash-'n'-drys such as Jay's on the Corner were putting in lacquered black counters, advertising overnight send-out service, playing "continuous soft hits" inside, and prettifying themselves in general: squeegeeing the windows clean every morning, hosing off the sidewalk, repainting signs, power-washing stubborn brick.

  The message there was that the renewing power of capitalism was a lot like falling in love. No other force in the universe could have moved old man Charlestown to run a new razor over his cheeks, close his collar with a necktie, check his manners, splash on a little cologne. Springtime was in bloom all over the Town, and free-market commerce was a pretty girl in a sundress and heels.