Handsome Harry

by James Carlos Blake

  He lived in an industrial neighborhood, in a garage apartment behind the house of an old Swedish couple named Carlson. His mother lived in an apartment house a few blocks away. He had so many brothers and sisters even he had lost the exact count, but the only ones still living with his mom were a pair of teenage sisters, Mary and Margo. His stepfather, a guy named Burke, was doing a stretch in the county slam for some kind of fraud, and Earl’s mother had been forced to take a job in a tire factory. His sisters worked too, when they weren’t in school. Mary did housecleaning and laundry for the elderly Carlson couple, and Margo, who was three or four years younger, earned a few bucks a week at babysitting jobs.

  Earl’s apartment was small but clean. It was equipped with a stove and an icebox and it had a bath with shower and hot water. Earl had the tiny bedroom, but the sofa was comfortably firm and large enough for me. It stood under a big window flanked by a maple tree that gave good shade against the afternoon sun.

  There was some bootleg beer in the icebox and we opened a quart bottle to toast our reunion. And to our new career as bank robbers.

  We’d talked it over in the car. When I told him I was through with nickel-and-dime stickups and wanted to hit a bank, he said Oh man, Harry, I don’t know. He thought it was a hell of a risky step up the ladder. Filling stations didn’t have armed guards or robbery alarms. They didn’t have teller cages or vaults or a whole bunch of witnesses standing around. The way he saw it, banks were strictly for guys who knew what they were doing, guys with experience at it.

  I said the only way to get experience at something was to do it.

  We batted it back and forth a while, but my mind was made up. Listen, I said, which is it—in or out? If he’d said out, I would’ve had him drop me off at a hotel and figured my next move from there. But he said Ah hell, man, of course I’m in.

  We talked late into the night and came up with a basic plan. The Indytown banks were out of the question. They were sure to have the most money, but they were also the best guarded and would be the hardest to make a getaway from. And common sense told us it wouldn’t be smart to rob a bank in the same town you lived in. We spread open a road map and picked out a dozen towns inside a forty-five-to-seventy-five-mile radius of Indianapolis. During the next few weeks, while Earl was working at the lumberyard to earn the rent and keep us fed, I’d go visit all twelve towns and make a note of every bank that didn’t have a guard and was well situated for a getaway. When I finished making the list, we’d decide which bank to hit. As for weapons, Earl had a four-inch .38 and he said he could get me one for a good price from the same source.

  And so we were settled on a course of action. Earl fetched us a nightcap beer from the icebox and clinked his bottle to mine and said Big time, here we come.

  On my second morning in the apartment I woke to Earl’s muffled snoring behind the bedroom door and an excited shrilling of birds. The room was full of sunlight and the heat of the summer day was already building. I flung the sheet off me and stretched, feeling grand. My usual morning stiffie was poking out of my undershorts and I was casually fingering it when I turned toward the window and saw a young red-haired girl perched on a maple branch and grinning at me. I snatched up the sheet but she was already shinning down the tree, laughing her head off.

  I recognized her as Earl’s sister Mary. I remembered her as a short skinny kid with plum-red hair who used to come to the front door and wave to me whenever I’d pull up to their house and honk the klaxon for Earl. He’d recently mentioned that he still called her Shorty because she wasn’t five feet tall and it looked like she never would be.

  I didn’t see her again until the following week, on a hot Saturday afternoon at a riverside park swimming hole. There were ropes attached to tree branches overhanging the river and kids would swing out on them and drop into the water. The air was full of their shrieks and laughter and the aroma of meat roasting on open grills. Earl was trying to make time with some girls sitting in the shade of a tree and pretending to be experienced cigarette smokers, but none of them was pretty enough to hold my attention. I was lying shirtless and sweaty on the grass at the edge of the river and staring up at the clouds when a squirt of water hit me in the chest. I flinched at its coldness and sat up fast. And there she was, a few feet from the bank and treading water as easily as a duck, wearing a white bathing cap and laughing at me. She had a scattering of freckles across her nose and upper cheeks.

  Daydreaming again, huh? she said. Better not do out here what you were doing the other day or you’ll get arrested. She waggled her brow and grinned.

  I felt my ears go hot and I said they should’ve named her Tom instead of Mary.

  Why’s that, she said. Because I’m a tomboy?

  Because she was a Peeping Tom.

  She said she was no such thing, all she was doing was climbing a tree to get some exercise. How was she supposed to know I’d be lying there playing with that big ugly thing?

  What would she know about men’s things, I said, she was just a child. I didn’t care for her calling it ugly but I was secretly pleased she called it big.

  She said she was certainly not a child and she knew plenty and I ought to keep the shade pulled down if I was going to engage in self-abuse. That’s the phrase she used, self-abuse, and it made me laugh.

  I said she had a pretty smart mouth for a kid and asked how old she was, anyway—fifteen?

  She said she was sixteen and way too smart for me—then gulped up another mouthful of water and spouted it at me, catching me on the ear.

  I scrambled to my feet and was going to jump in and give her a good dunking, but before I could kick off my shoes she shot away with a few strong strokes and then surged up onto the bank about ten yards downstream, coming out of the water in a silvery rush, the thin blue swimsuit pasted to her nipples and lean belly and small round bottom shaped like an overturned heart. She snatched up her towel and gave me another wag of her eyebrows and ran off, brown legs flashing. She sprinted past Earl and the tootsies and disappeared where the lane to the bathhouse curved around through the trees. And took a good bit of my breath with her.

  The next time I saw her was a few days later when she came over to clean the old couple’s house. She came speeding down the driveway on her bicycle and slid neatly off the seat and let the bike go crashing into the backyard fence. She was wearing her hair chippy-fashion, long and loose to her shoulders. As she started up the steps to the Carlson kitchen she saw me at the apartment window and smiled. When I smiled back she stuck her tongue out at me, then laughed and went inside.

  Over the next few weeks I saw her only on those days when I happened to be home and she came to tidy the Carlsons’ place or do their wash. On laundry days she wore shorts cut so high they would’ve had my mother shaking her head and remarking on the shamelessness of young girls today. When she hung the clothes on the outdoor line, she’d work with her back to the garage, and each time she bent to get another piece of laundry from the basket the shorts rode up high and snug on that perfect little bottom and I’d feel my dick take a deep breath. She always knew I was watching—I knew she did because she’d never even glance toward my window. On the days when she did housecleaning she’d wear one of Earl’s old shirts that was so big on her the tails reached almost to her knees and I had to wonder if she was wearing shorts underneath or just her underpants. She’d always leave the top buttons of the shirt undone, and whenever I’d hear the screen door screech open I’d go to the window and watch as she leaned over the porch rail and shook out the dust mop. The shirt would bag wide open and even at that distance I’d catch glimpses of her small round tits. As she damn well knew I would.

  She was sixteen going on thirty is what she was.

  One laundry day she didn’t show up. When I casually remarked on it to Earl that evening he said she had quit school and taken a fulltime job as a waitress in a café.

  My list had seven banks on it. We discussed the pros and cons of all of them and narrowe
d the possibilities down one by one and ended up choosing the Mid-State Bank in Marion. It seemed to be doing good business and stood right at the edge of town for an easy getaway. The road out of town went winding through woods and came to intersecting highways not more than two miles beyond the city limits. If anybody came after us and didn’t have us in sight before we hit the intersecting roads, they wouldn’t know for sure which way we’d gone. On top of that, the police force didn’t look like much, and its cars were Model Ts. Whatever car we stole for the job would outrun them easily if they came after us.

  Earl gave his boss at the lumberyard a song and dance about having to appear in traffic court in Anderson on the Friday we were going to pull the heist. On the morning of the big day, I swiped a Lincoln from the south side of town. Earl followed me in his car to Anderson, where we left the Maxwell parked near the edge of town.

  We got to Marion a few minutes before noon. It was sunny and windless and chilly enough so that people’s breath showed like thin smoke. There was a scattering of cars parked at an angle, nose to the curb in front of the bank, and we found a spot close to the building. There wasn’t a cop car in sight. We’d picked the noon hour for the job because most people, including the cops, would be having dinner, and street traffic would be at its lightest.

  We wore dark glasses and pulled our hat brims low. Even if they saw our faces, nobody in that town knew who we were. All they could do was describe us, and most descriptions fit so many people they’re fairly useless. We checked our pieces and slipped them back into our waistbands, then grinned at each other and I said Let’s do it.

  We went in and pulled our guns and Earl took a position next to the door. In a voice as commanding as if he’d done this a dozen times before, he shouted All right, people, this is a stickup! Stand fast!

  He was tickled pink later when I said he’d sounded so scary I almost put my hands up—just like some of the customers did, although nobody’d told them to do it.

  There were only six or seven citizens in the place, all of them staring at us with their mouths open, including a woman who was wearing what looked like a pot of flowers on her head and stood at the only open window at the teller’s cage. Three guys were waiting in line behind her. They all backed away as I came up and told the woman Pardon me, lady, I’m cutting the line.

  She moved aside and I stepped to the window. The teller was a skinny guy wearing horn-rims and a red visor. I took a folded pillowcase from my coat and shook it open and slid it across the counter through the bars and said Put the money in there, pal, and make it snappy.

  His eyes rolled up in his head and he keeled over off his stool and hit the floor like a sack of stove coal.

  I thought Jesus H. Christ and pulled myself up on the window bars high enough to see him flat on his back in a dead faint with his glasses hanging off one ear.

  The only other person inside the cage was a woman at a desk. She was staring at the guy on the floor like he’d done something to offend her.

  You, I said, wagging the gun at her, Get over here.

  She wore wire-rim specs and her chestnut hair was in a bun at the nape of her neck, but when she stood up I saw she was nicely put together.

  Christ sake, woman, move, I said.

  There’s no call for swearing, she said. Her eyes were dark blue. She took up the pillowcase and began putting money in it. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

  We’d been expecting an alarm but so far it hadn’t sounded. A well-barbered fat guy with pink hands and wearing a pinstriped suit sat with a man in faded overalls at a big desk under a wall photo of President Cal. I figured Pinstripes for the boss and probably the guy with the alarm button. Earl had him spotted too and was pointing his revolver at him from ten feet away and Mr. Pinstripes was staring at Earl’s gun like a guy in a trance. If he had a button he was too scared to push it.

  Miss Blue Eyes took the last of the money from the till and put it in the pillowcase and shoved the bundle to me. Here, she said. Now go away.

  But I’d seen that the vault behind her was open, and I went to the cage door and said for her to unlock it.

  It is unlocked, she said. Sarcastic as hell.

  Let’s get a move on, buddy boy, Earl said.

  The teller on the floor had come around and was starting to sit up as I came into the cage. Then he saw me and up rolled his eyes and down he went again.

  Miss Blue Eyes shook her head and looked so disgusted I thought she might spit on him.

  The vault contained cabinets and lockers of various sizes, steel bookcases, stacks of ledgers. The light in there wasn’t very good and I was tempted to take off my sunglasses but didn’t. I turned around just as the woman was putting her hands to the vault door and I read her eyes and knew what she was thinking. I pointed a finger at her and said Don’t try it.

  You won’t shoot me, she said, which I guess meant because she was a woman. I didn’t know if she had nerve or was plain foolish. What did she think Earl would do if she locked me in?

  I pointed the .38 at her and cocked it. If you’ve never heard a revolver cock inside a bank vault, let me assure you that it is a very serious sound. I said Don’t bet your life on it, honey. Now get in here.

  She took her hands off the door and came in. I wondered what she looked like without the glasses and her hair down and her clothes off. My money would’ve been on very nice.

  I asked where the cash was and she pulled open a drawer filled with packets of greenbacks so new that a smell rose off them like some fresh-baked treat. I laughed and I handed her the bag and said to put it all in.

  Let’s go, brother, Earl called out.

  I came out of the cage with the pillowcase wrapped snugly around the money and tucked under my arm like a football. The citizens were all exactly as before, their eyes still on Earl’s revolver. The power of the gun—wooo.

  Earl was as charged up as I was. If I hear an alarm go off, he said loudly, I swear to Jesus I’ll run right back in here and shoot all you goddamn Hoosiers. Starting with you, fatso!

  He wagged his pistol at Mr. Pinstripes, who shook his head and made all sorts of jittery gestures to let us know he wouldn’t dream of giving the alarm.

  We slipped our pistols under our coats and went out and headed for the car at a quick walk. I whispered Easy does it, easy does it, and Earl whispered back I know, man, I know—and then said What the hell’s this?

  Directly behind the Lincoln, blocking it in, stood an idling Templar coupe. The driver was leaning out his window and gabbing with the driver of a pickup truck facing the other way. A pair of locals chewing the fat in the middle of the street and in no hurry about it because there was no waiting traffic behind either of them.

  As we got to the Lincoln, Earl said Hey you! Move it!

  The driver of the Templar turned to squint at us through the passenger window. Say now, mister, he said, you could try asking a little more polite.

  I slid behind the wheel and cranked up the motor as Earl took out his piece and pointed it at him and said How’s this for polite, you stupid hick! Now move it!

  Their eyes got this big and the other driver hunched down behind the wheel and his truck went rumbling off. But the guy in the Templar was so rattled the car bucked hard and stalled.

  Oh God, mister, the guy shouts, don’t shoot! And puts his hands up.

  I said move that fucken thing! Earl yells. But the guy’s too scared to do anything except put his hands higher and beg Don’t shoot me, please don’t shoot!

  Watch out, I said to Earl. I yanked the gearshift into reverse and gunned the Lincoln backward and—pow!—I sent the little coupe screeching sideways farther into the street, its windshield falling apart and the driver’s hat flying off. But it was still partially blocking us in, so I pulled forward again, put it into reverse once more, and pow!—I rammed the Templar even harder, spinning it halfway around and out of our way. The little car’s side was demolished and the driver wasn’t in sight.

  Earl
hopped in as I wheeled the Lincoln around. People were flocking out to the sidewalks to see what all the crashing was about. I stomped on the gas pedal and we tore off down the street as the bank alarm started sounding.

  Why, that fat sorry bastard, Earl said, glaring back toward the bank. Then we flew past the city limit sign without any cars behind us and we were both laughing like hell.

  We weren’t laughing two hours later when we were back in the apartment and found out the money was mostly small bills. The take came to $2,285—more than either of us had ever had our hands on, to be sure, but there was no denying Miss Blue Eyes had pulled a fast one on us. We read all about it in the next day’s paper. Her name was Helen Something-or-other and the report hailed her as a fast-thinking heroine who had outfoxed the robbers by foisting the small bills on us and saving the rest of the cash in the vault. More than four thousand bucks.

  Earl was so furious he wanted to go back to Marion and fix her wagon. For days afterward he muttered about that no-good crooked bitch. Not me. I admired her pluck—not to mention those sexy eyes and sweet curves. Ten to one she ended up marrying some banker and they bought a nice house and had a bunch of kids and she lost her figure and every day of her life is the same as every other day and will be until she’s too old for it to make any difference anymore. But I’ll bet you anything that every now and then she remembers staring down the barrel of my pistol and how her breath went deeper than it ever did in her life and how her blood sped up and she had absolutely no idea what would happen next.

  I bought a four-year-old Buick in good condition and went to the best haberdashery in town and got myself a new wardrobe, including three custom-tailored suits and a pair of Italian shoes. And then one evening I drove over to the Copper Kettle Café where Mary was waiting tables.

  I hadn’t seen her since she’d quit her job with the old couple. She was busy taking an order and didn’t notice me when I came in and took a booth at the rear of the room. I held a menu so she couldn’t see my face until she came to the booth and said, What’s yours, mister?