4
FRANK TAPPED AWAY at his steering wheel and focused on keeping just below the speed limit. He avoided the freeway in case there were any cordons but there were too many alternate routes for the cops to prevent a felon from fleeing the scene.
The plan had always been to head off in the wrong direction from their intended destination and Frank saw no reason to deviate from this sensible decision - even though that siren was definitely getting louder.
He kept checking in the mirror for some sign of a red flashing light but there was nothing. A few cars and the occasional truck behind him.
“Any idea where the siren’s coming from?”
“No. But if you listen carefully, only sounds like one.”
“You reckon?”
“Yes, Frank.”
Mary Lou opened her window to get a better fix. A blast of cold air entered the cabin due to the speed of the car. Her hair flapped around and whipped her face. Frank’s short back and sides unaffected by the airflow.
“One for sure - unless they’re so far away...”
Frank was certain the cop was getting closer, but there wasn't even the dust trail from a high pursuit vehicle behind them. Nada.
Mary Lou shook her head and shrugged.
“Wind your window back up. If we can't hear the siren then I might as well listen to my music.”
“Okay.”
He carried on tapping and Mary Lou put both feet on her seat, turning her body into a ball. And the car stormed along despite traveling at exactly five miles an hour below the limit.
“How far east should we go?”
“Far enough so that if any local recognizes us that they report to the cops we were heading for Philly.”
“How long you reckon that is?”
“Another hour tops. Then we can head north and round until we are on a straight line for California.”
“California? Wow.”
Frank sucked in air. He didn't want to have this conversation now.
“Not planning on heading to the west coast then?”
She stared at him.
“I had total faith in your ability to take out the bank. We spent enough time preparing for the robbery to be sure we’d carry it through right.”
“But?”
“There were complications for both so us, I'd say. Me before you hit the entrance and for you once you’d told everyone to stick ‘em up.”
“Complications. Nice description. Yes, there were problems inside. No-one knew where the money was. Not even the bank manager.”
“Crazier things have happened.”
“Did Carter tell you he would run off with the take?”
Mary Lou's eyes widened as Frank had nailed the situation perfectly. Carter was their mark inside and she’d been playing him for months. Squeezing him for information, spending time with him, sleeping with him. Falling in love with him.
“He talked about it but I didn't reckon on him going through with it. Talked big but acted small.”
“Is that why you didn't mention his plan to rob the take from under our noses? Not even a mention. Not once.”
“He didn't name a date. Said it to impress me. Nothing more than that.”
“Then any idea why he chose the exact day we came in to lift the money?”
“Well, it was the largest amount of notes in their vault for months. That's why...”
Frank’s eyes showed he wasn't buying a word she was saying. To be fair, she was skating close to the truth but withholding certain key facts. Like she was planning to run away from him. Or Uncle Frankie’s involvement in the whole deal. That could wait until later. Much later.
“Not now, Frank. It’s too complicated and I doubt you’re happy with what I've said, judging by your expression.”
He nodded in agreement.
“But at some point you need to tell me what happened in that bank. There’s next of kin to call.”
“Pete had no-one: he was a cantankerous little shit who had no friends and no family. And don't spare a tear for Andrew. He’s the one who blasted a hole in Pete’s head.”
Mary Lou sat and stared at Frank with a stomach cramp reflecting the pain of his words.
“Now is not the time.”
“For sure. We can talk later. Let’s get further away from the scene of the crime. There’s a lot to figure out.”
“You said it.”
The siren got nearer but still only a handful of cars and two trucks. And a plume of smoke receding in the distance. The noise was loud and Frank listened hard. Mary Lou was right: there was only one siren blaring out. Nothing in the rearview mirror. He looked at the road, he looked at the mirror and noticed beads of sweat dribbling down the side of his face.
“Put your legs down. If this goes belly-up, you don't want your legs crushed by the dash.”
Mary Lou sat properly again although Frank’s comment didn't help her anxiety levels, which were through the roof.
There was a bend up ahead which shifted the highway about eighty degrees right. A clump of trees stood at the inside line of the road’s curve. As if from nowhere, a blue-and-white hurtled toward them and then past heading back into Baltimore. Its red light flashed and the siren wailed. Frank recognized the driver from the car which overtook the van earlier. He relaxed.
“Looks like we’re not the ones being chased.”
Mary Lou leaned over and planted a kiss on his shoulder - she couldn't reach his mouth.
THE MILES STRETCHED out behind them until Mary Lou thought she’d been to this place before. When Frank pulled into a faded parking lot next to a tumbledown building then Mary Lou knew for sure. He’d taken them to the disused factory where they’d held their meetings as a crew.
“What we doing here?”
“You’ll see.”
Frank drove round the back of the rundown factory. Originally it stood four storeys tall but now half the building was a pile of rubble and the surviving half comprised a series of small rooms missing walls, ceilings and, in two cases, floors.
They had used the only room with four functioning walls, complete floor and ceiling, which was located in the middle of the space. The location was obscure and even if someone followed them to the site, finding the room was a trial in itself.
They both walked around the fallen bricks and Mary Lou followed Frank into the room they’d stood in so many times before. A sole chair lay on its side, which Uncle Frankie used while everyone else stood around. Four feet away from it was the flat ground Frank had used to draw a map of the bank.
He went past the chair and headed towards the far wall. Mary Lou couldn't tell quite where he was going but he certainly had a destination in mind. Frank stopped in a corner and counted fifteen footsteps heel-to-toe along the wall. Then stopped and faced the wall.
Mary Lou watched him squat and pull out a brick to reveal a gap containing a box. Frank dragged it out of the cavity and flipped open the lid. Inside: papers. He passed a couple of items up to Mary Lou.
“Here’s a passport with a fake name and a matching driving license.”
“How long have you had these?”
“Long enough.”
Frank smiled up at her and winked.
“Got them sorted a month after I departed the Baltimore State Penitentiary. Never knew when they might be useful.”
“You said it. What else is in there?”
Frank slammed the box shut and shoved it back into the cavity.
“Never you mind.”
He stood up and shoved his passport and photo ID into his back pocket.
“Does that mean we’re going to leave the country? I thought we were off west.”
“Never hurts to have a plan B. And these will give us options if we need then.”
Mary Lou flipped over her ID to find her new name: Claudia Starr. Sounded like a porn actress.
“Who’s Claudia?”
“You.”
“No, silly. I mean who’d you know called Claudia
?”
“Nobody. It’s just a name.”
Mary Lou nodded but she found it hard to believe.
“And I'm Karl Todd.”
“Hi Karl.
“Hi Claudia.”
They both laughed a little and then headed back to the Falcon.
“Can we get a bite to eat? I'm starved.”
Frank sat there for a second.
“I am too. I know a place a few miles down the road. Brian mentioned it to me. We can go there then head west.”
“Cool.”
Out the parking lot and back onto tarmac. Stubbornly remaining under the limit, Frank drove off, still avoiding the expressway. Thirty minutes later they understood why the interstates were built. Straight lines with faster traffic. If they weren't concerned about police cordons they would already have been tucking into bacon and hash browns.
Instead, they made their way slowly and safely along the back roads. Whenever a blue and white happened to cross their paths, Mary Lou froze in her seat. Frank appeared more relaxed but he always stopped tapping on the steering wheel until the cop car faded into the rearview mirror. While there was stress in the car, there was nothing but rolling hills and the great outdoors beyond the Falcon.
Mary Lou noticed they went under the I-95 as they passed the exit and entrance ramp signs. A minute later they went by a gas station on the right and twenty seconds further on, a diner appeared on the left: The Joppa-de-Doopah Diner.
They parked and Mary Lou stared at the ramshackle venue. It looked as though it hadn't seen a lick of paint since 1945. The slime of oil seeped into every corner of the lot and the brickwork. There were two buildings: one large, one small. The smaller one clearly was an outhouse and the larger one was filled with light, tables and women wearing waitress uniforms. You didn't need to be a genius to figure out what went on inside the Joppa-de-Doopah. Even though the smaller outcrop from the diner appeared basic in the extreme, Mary Lou knew she needed to use the facilities before she ate.
“You go ahead. I'll catch up with you in a minute.”
“Huh? Oh, sure.”
Mary Lou was taking a risk: Frank could drive off and leave her stranded but she’d already tested him with the same quandary at the barn and he’d waited for her. So the chances were he’d do the same again.
5
WHEN SHE PUSHED open the door marked with an enormous ‘W’, Mary Lou held her breath. There were two mirrors above cracked sinks and on the opposite wall were a pair of cubicles. Only one had a lock.
Given the amount of grime on the faucets, she decided against washing her hands and went into the diner to find Frank in a booth by a window. She sat opposite him and realized they could see the entrance to the lot as well as the Falcon. No surprises there.
“What’d you kids like to wrap your lips around?”
The waitress’s voice carried over the two feet tall menus which she’d earlier deposited on the table when Frank first arrived.
Without looking at her, Mary Lou asked for coffee and a glass of water. Frank ordered the same. Mary Lou lowered the laminated menu in time to see a middle-aged woman waddled off to behind the counter to prepare their drinks. She was no spring chicken. Mary Lou eyed her up and down. The woman’s blouse was too tight for her; each button was about to burst. Perhaps because of this, one too many buttons were undone. Or she did it to get more tips. Most of the clientele were men, who’d left the expressway for a bite to eat and an ass to ogle.
“Thanks.”
“Call me Lucy.”
“Thanks Lucy.”
“You’re welcome, fella.”
She turned to Mary Lou.
“He’s a big hulk of a man, isn't he? You better hang on to him. Take my word. You lose sight of him for one minute and I'll be all over his bones. No offence dear.”
“None taken.”
They ordered too much food and Lucy left them alone for a while. What she lacked in subtlety, she made up for in efficiency. Soon they tucked into their feast: bacon, eggs, hash browns, toast, home fries.
There was no conversation, just chewing and slurping of coffee. Frank and Mary Lou both deep in their own thoughts, playing over the last two hours and projecting into the future without knowing what would happen one moment to the next.
“What happened in the bank, then?”
Frank put his silverware down and folded his arms.
“It was a fucking mess. That’s what happened. The money had gone from the vault. No kidding.”
“Jeez.”
“I had to break a few heads before I believed the bank staff when they said they didn't know.”
He replayed the images in his head of him torturing the manager, slicing a cashier and cutting her tit.
“We were walking out with nothing when something didn't look right in the state of Maryland. One pinhead couldn't keep his eyes straight. Kept on looking below his desk and I figured he’d stashed the cash. In the two black bags in the trunk. That was your Carter.”
Mary Lou continued to stare at him but said nothing.
“Maybe you know what the fuck he was up to. You can tell me in a minute. Brian was standing next to me but Andrew was nowhere. We exited the bank and found him outside, by Pete’s driver’s door holding a gun. He’d shot Pete in the head. The interior of the car was a fucking mess. You never want to see what that car looked like.”
Frank sank the rest of his coffee and Lucy came over for a refill and walked away. He watched her return to the counter and turned his gaze back on Mary Lou.
“So I shot him dead. Couldn't have a killer in the crew. One minute it’s Pete, the next it could’ve been any of us. Then you saw us a few minutes later.”
He sipped the now hot coffee and drank a mouthful of water.
“The cops chased us out of Lansdowne. Know why?”
Mary Lou nodded.
“Because you didn't set the explosives. Why?”
“It might be hard to believe but it was an honest mistake. I placed them all but I got flustered and just plain forgot to flip the switch to set them off. I told you all I wanted nothing to do with the bombs but y’all insisted.”
“You forgot?”
“Yes, I forgot.”
Frank remained silent for five minutes, staring at Mary Lou and sipping his coffee. Eventually, she broke the tension.
“Carter had the money but he was in the bank?”
“Yep. Hidden under his desk, like I said.”
“Any idea what he was doing with it?”
“He was gonna rob our bank. Actually, he had robbed the place, if you think about it. But he had missed a key element of any robbery: he forgot to get away.”
Mary Lou let out a nervous laugh and Frank carried on staring. She had known Carter would steal the money for a while before the job but, for whatever reason, instead of leaving before Frank arrived, he had gained a yellow streak down his back and hadn't stolen anything from anyone. Shifting the cash from one part of a bank to another meant nothing. And she had been planning on spending the rest of her life with this sap.
“It’s the little things that count.”
“Did you know what your Carter was gonna do this morning?”
“First, he’s not my Carter. Just plain Carter. Second, no. If I had known he would run off with the money then I'd have met him and we could have bushwhacked him without anyone going into that damn bank.”
“And you hadn't schemed with him to steal the take away from us?”
“Frank? Listen to yourself. Please.”
He continued to stare and then it was Mary Lou's turn to sip at a coffee mug. To her, it was only a partial lie. Once Carter failed to come out the bank then she was telling the truth. Until then, her plan was to follow the money. She was attracted to both men and, although she’d selected Carter, Mary Lou knew Frank was a good man. Didn't mean he would believe her.
“Listen. If I wanted you gone, I'd have let Paul and Luigi do you in at the rendezvous. But I saved your lif
e.”
She allowed those four words to sink in because his staring was annoying her. He had good reason to be angry over Carter but he should show some gratitude too, she reckoned.
THE PROBLEM THEY both faced was simple: neither trusted the other enough. In the last few hours, Mary Lou and Frank had supported the other but the bliss they felt yesterday before the heist had dissipated into thin air. Mary Lou had withheld vital information before the job and understood Frank was wary of her.
When those detonators failed to blow, Frank was well within his rights to hunt her down and throw her out the window. That’s what he’d done to his last partner when a robbery went sour. Mary Lou plain didn't know if he was just biding his time, waiting for the right moment.
“Where do we go from here.”
“I don't know. We could split up the money and go our separate ways.”
“Is that what you want Frank?”
“Me? No, but I understand if that’s what you wanted. I wouldn't want that to happen but I’d get it.”
“I don't want us to separate either.”
“Then where shall we go from here?”
Frank smiled because he understood the double meaning to his words. He had only intended the geographical question.
“West like we said a year ago?”
“That’s been the plan all right. Cali-forn-I-a. I've always wanted to see the Pacific Ocean.”
“With our new passports, we could always head to Mexico. Swift shuffle over the border and then we vanish.”
“Sure could. I like the sound of the weather they have down Tijuana way but neither of us speak Spanish.”
Mary Lou thought about how much she’d hate to move south. She’d spent her entire life trying to escape from those murky depths of the country.
“There’s also Canada, Frank.”
“It hovers over us and enough people have gone over the border to dodge the draft, we know we could slip through the customs barrier no problem. But man it’s cold up there and I don't fancy that. If we’re going to relocate the least the place should offer us is a warm environment.”
The Lagotti Family Series Page 26
