“FUCK THE PANDA! Fuck the goddamned panda!” Kevin was screaming as he paced back and forth, staring, enraged, at the television. They had sat through five minutes of panda news and he couldn’t take it anymore. They knew more about pandas than they had ever wanted to. There had even been a special segment on their mating rituals and several slow camera pans of baby pandas being bottle-fed. “OK, I get it. Pandas are cute. Can we have some fucking news now?”
Mitch was sitting with his head in his hands, Doug silent, his injured ankle still propped on the coffee table. Kevin grabbed the remote and began flipping to the other news stations, which, incredibly, were also showing panda clips.
“I’m gonna strangle a fucking panda,” said Mitch softly to himself.
“Dude, I just wanted to go to Chicken Buckets,” Doug was saying to himself. “And now I’m wanted for attempted murder. Or maybe murder. Or-”
“Dude, shut up.”
“And now, a daring robbery in Westlake leaves an elderly security guard fighting for his life.” They shushed each other and cranked up the volume some more, so as not to miss a word.
“Finally,” said Kevin.
“A daring daylight robbery in Westlake resulted in the shooting of Ames Security guard Francis Delahunt,” the news anchor read. They watched the whole piece. At no point did the report actually say that it was the daring robbers who shot him, merely that the robbery resulted in his being shot. Then the news program cut to a detective standing outside the bank.
“This was clearly the work of professionals,” he said as snow fell in his hair. The detective seemed uncomfortable with the microphone being held in his face. He had the look of a man who would rather get back to work. “They created a distraction and then hit the van.” More babbling, then it cut to a cereal commercial.
“We’re professionals,” said Doug, flushing with pride. “I don’t think I’ve ever been called a professional before.” Then he remembered that he had just been implicitly accused of shooting someone and he fell silent.
“That was fucking smart,” said Kevin, “jumping in front of the SUV like that. Did you guys just think that up on the spot?”
Mitch and Doug looked at each other. “Yeah,” Mitch said after a second.
“They know we didn’t shoot that guy,” Kevin said, scoffing at the report, but with worry still evident on his face. “They never actually said we shot the guy.”
“Do you think somebody watching that report is going to figure that out?” Mitch snapped. “They deliberately tried to give the impression that we shot the guy. I mean, if someone gets shot during a robbery, it’s pretty much a given that it was the robbers who shot him, don’t you think?”
“This is fucked up,” said Kevin. “I mean, we even decided not to bring Tasers. Tasers! Let alone guns.”
“I think it’s bullshit,” said Mitch. “They’re just saying he got shot so people will turn us in.”
“I heard a shot,” said Doug. “Didn’t you guys hear a shot?”
“And a scream,” Kevin agreed.
“I saw the fat dude with a gun,” Mitch said, thinking hard and talking slowly. “He was the only guy there with a gun… and he fired it… and…”
“Fuck!” Doug yelled, his head in his hands. “I could have gone to Chicken Buckets this morning.”
“Dudes,” Mitch said, as if uncovering the Holy Grail, as if a ray of clear and brilliant light were shining on him, the light of logic. “If there was only one gun and one guy firing it… and one guy got shot, it must have been the guy with the gun.”
“The guard,” said Kevin.
“The fat guard shot the old guard.”
Their thoughts began racing and they started finishing each other’s sentences as they pieced the situation together. “And then he said-”
“It was us who shot the old guard-”
“Because he didn’t want to get blamed for it-”
“But there’s no fucking way… They must know…”
“They can do things with bullets, like ballistics tests and shit…”
They stopped and stared at each other.
“I’m leaving town,” said Mitch.
“Dude,” Kevin said. “You can’t leave town. We agreed we’d just sit tight for six months.”
Mitch shook his head and sighed. “I know, but this shit changes everything.”
“No it doesn’t. Just calm down. Smoke a bowl, man. Everything will be OK. They’ve got no way to connect us with anything.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling,” Mitch said again.
Kevin stood up and looked at the piles of money on the floor. “Does this give you a bad feeling? Look at this.” He looked at his cell phone. “There’s sixty-six thousand, two hundred and forty-one dollars, each.”
Mitch let the amount sink in for a second. Three years work at Accu-mart, just lying on the floor.
“We bury it, like we agreed,” Kevin said. “For six months.”
Mitch shook his head. “I’ve got a bad feeling,” he said. “You guys bury yours. I’m keeping mine in a duffel bag.”
“If he wants to keep his in a duffel bag,” Doug said, “why isn’t that cool?”
“Because if they search the house, they’ll find it.”
“Dude, if they’re searching the house, it means we’re fucked anyway.”
Kevin sat back down on the couch, shaking his head. “I don’t want to hear any more about your fucking bad feeling,” he said. “We got away with it. We did something right.”
Mitch looked at Kevin, the TV still blaring in the background. He was clearly unconvinced. “We need to make plans,” he said. “Contingency plans.”
“Contingency plans,” Doug agreed. Mitch wasn’t sure Doug knew what contingency plans meant, but he liked that Doug was backing him up.
“OK,” Kevin said. “We’ll make contingency plans.”
DETECTIVE ROBERT SCOTT was wondering whether it was an act of genius to rob an armored car just as a snowstorm was starting, or a complete fluke. A lot of what these guys had done seemed like a fluke and he wasn’t even sure if the supposed diversion the robbers had created, leaping out in the path of a car, had been intentional. How would that work, unless the mother, who had been teaching her daughter to parallel park, had been in on it? And clearly, she hadn’t been.
And you couldn’t arrange a snow storm.
Still, when he had spoken to the reporter, he had acted as if he were dealing with a group of criminal masterminds. It was always best that way. The more threatened the public felt, the greater the likelihood of someone turning the perpetrators in. That was why he had intentionally failed to mention that the idiot security guard had shot his own partner. As usual, the reporter just took down everything he said without asking any relevant questions and rushed to say it, word for word, in front of the camera.
The security guard hadn’t wanted to admit he had shot his own partner. He had tried for at least thirty seconds to suggest that these guys had been armed, but that had fallen apart quickly when both the mother and daughter said they hadn’t seen any of the robbers with a gun. The fact that the injured guard, getting loaded into an ambulance, had been repeatedly screaming “You stupid fucking moron!” at his partner, who had been trying, red-faced and pathetic, to keep his composure, also served to discredit the fat guard’s claim.
A uniformed officer came up behind Scott, his feet crunching in the snow. “No tracks from the other vehicle, because of the snow,” the officer said. “No prints in the Impala. No info on the plate. Nevada DMV says, a thirty-year-old plate like that, we’ll have to wait until Monday morning to get the info from Carson City. The government offices are already closed.”
Scott gritted his teeth and shook his head. He hated when things happened at the end of the day on Fridays. Of course, most criminals knew this would slow down an investigation, which was why Friday afternoons were a particularly busy time.
“We could call the mayor of Carson City and get authorization,” the officer suggested. “We can do that now. The new antiterrorism laws…”
Scott shook his head. “This really doesn’t qualify. What about the VIN number?”
“The last time this vehicle was registered was in 1988. To a Reginald Wright, lives in Newcastle.”
“Let’s go talk to him.”
The officer, a young man whom Scott only knew in passing, usually worked traffic detail and had almost finished his shift when the bank got robbed. He had already been kept past his end time for the three hours since they had found and printed the Impala, and Scott noticed a look of reluctance pass across his face.
“How about those guys over there?” Scott said, pointing to a few officers milling around the Impala. “Did any of those guys just come on shift?”
The officer nodded eagerly. “Peskey did.”
“Send him over here. You go home.”
“Yessir.”
THE CONTINGENCY PLAN was not complicated. Doug and Kevin were going to take five thousand out for emergencies and bury the rest of their money where they had agreed: in the exact same place they had parked the Ferrari.
Mitch would take his money and stuff it in a duffel bag. He also made himself an emergency escape kit with all the things he needed to hit the road in a hurry: a few changes of clothes, his favorite bowl (a glass-blown piece of art he had bought off eBay), and something to fill it with. Everything else he owned he figured he could kiss goodbye, and it didn’t amount to much.
Getting their story straight was another thing. They all agreed on that. Since Kevin had been the driver and had been wearing his ski mask, his name should never come up. In the event that Doug or Mitch, who might have been identified, got questioned, they would just say that the third guy was a mysterious stranger who ran off with all the money. Kevin didn’t seem enthusiastic about being protected, but he did acknowledge that, as he had a wife and child and a criminal record, it might be best.
So the only one with a plan was Doug.
“We should both take off, man,” Mitch said. “You gotta come with me.”
But Doug knew he couldn’t. It was all coming full circle, like some beautifully laid cosmic plan. He would be the one who would convince the cops Kevin wasn’t involved. If he took off too, Kevin would get arrested. Now he saw how he could make things up to Kevin. Not by selling pills, because that had mostly been for him anyway. The only way he could make things right with Kevin, without telling him anything, was by going to jail for him.
Of course, that would only happen if the cops figured anything out. And as Kevin kept repeating over and over, and Mitch kept contradicting, that was never going to happen.
After The Contingency Plan had been made, they settled back on the couch and packed a bowl. Kevin called Linda and told her he was going to be late. He had dogs to walk.
“If Mitch leaves town,” Doug asked, “can I walk dogs for you? I’d rather do that than work at Chicken Buckets.”
“Sure,” Kevin said. “But Mitch isn’t going to leave town.”
“Are you going to leave town, Mitch?”
Mitch said nothing.
“MR. WRIGHT? MR. Wright?” Detective Scott hammered on the decaying screen door again. The noise echoed back into the trees, shattering the peace of the gently hissing snowfall. Scott could hear a television inside and figured the guy was old or just nearly deaf. Judging by the look of the yard, which contained only things that had been bought before 1980, he guessed old.
Detective Scott knew from twenty-seven years on the police force that old people were hard to deal with. Civilians always thought it was young people who were rude to the police. It was certainly young people who committed most of the crimes, but old people were less likely to show respect, more likely to scream curses at you. Maybe they figured that, as death was relatively near, they had less to lose. Scott hoped this was one of the other kind of old people, the deferential, friendly kind, but something about the appearance of the house made him suspect otherwise.
The door flew open and an old man glared at them. “Whaddya want?”
“Evening, Mr. Wright. Are you Reginald Wright?”
“Whaddya want? Goddamn hammering on my door at this time of night.”
It was only eight thirty, but Scott let it go. “Mr. Wright, I’m Detective Robert Scott of the Wilton Police Department, and this is Officer Peskey.”
“Whaddya want?”
“Mr. Wright, do you own a 1980 Chevy Impala?”
“What? That’s was this is about? I took the ad out of the paper. Sold it… last week.”
“Did you transfer the title and get the paperwork-”
“I sold it, I tell you. What would the goddamned cops want a car like that for? It was a piece a’ shit.”
“Mr. Wright, we don’t want to buy it. We want to know who you sold it to. When you sell a car, you have to do a title transfer and-”
“I’m eighty-four years old,” said Mr. Wright.
“Well, that’s actually not an excuse to not transfer the title.”
“That’s bullshit. All a bunch a’ bullshit.” Mr. Wright started to slam the door shut, but Detective Scott gently inserted his foot in the doorway to stop him.
“Mr. Wright, that car was used in a robbery. And if you don’t talk to us, I’m going to assume you had something to do with it and have Officer Pesky here arrest you.”
Mr. Wright, who was used to having his demeanor interpreted as lovable elderly dottiness, became lucid and agreeable in a hurry. “What do you want to know?”
“What did the guy who bought the car look like?”
“There were three of them. One of them looked like a hippie.”
“A hippie?”
“Long-haired. You know. A damned hippie.”
Scott wondered whether it was feasible to get this guy to a sketch artist with a snow storm developing and decided to leave it until tomorrow. This wasn’t exactly the crime of the century. The guys had been unarmed and he didn’t want to force either the sketch artist or this old guy to be out and about on icy roads at all hours of the night. He was about to suggest a visit in the morning, when Mr. Wright offered one last piece of information.
“They buried something. In my yard.”
AFTER BURYING THE money, Kevin came home around midnight and noticed Linda’s car was not in the driveway. He sat in his truck for a full five minutes before he resolved to go inside. It didn’t necessarily mean she had left him. She could have just spent the night at her mother’s.
In the dining room, there was no note, which was a good sign, but all of Ellie’s toys and books were gone, which wasn’t. He flipped on the bedroom light and went through Linda’s dresser. All the drawers were empty.
It was over.
Sitting on the bed, he looked at himself in the dresser mirror. It was over. He had snow in his hair and he had just robbed a bank and his wife and daughter were gone. How long had he been playing the role of father and husband without actually being one? Almost from the beginning, his family had been an afterthought. He had married too young, for all the wrong reasons, he decided. He had been envying Mitch and Doug, as they sat around baked and bunny-eyed in front of their TV, for the last few years. Maybe that was what adult males needed-a few years of baked, bunny-eyed behavior before they took on the roles of father and husband. He had rushed into things without ever taking the time to decompress from his teens.
Fuck it. He felt relief rather than regret, or at least, he told himself he did. It was too much for one day. First an armored car robbery and then your wife leaves you on the same damned day. He’d have to figure out what he felt later.
Was it fixable? Could he have everything back the way it used to be, after they had first been married? Possibly, he decided. It would take a lot of work. But with $62,214 and eleven cents, he might actually have the time and resources to work things out. The thought gave him a lift.
In the meantime, he would just enjoy having the house to himself. Then a thought occurred to him. The reason Linda had left was because he was always living in the meantime. He had secretly wanted the house to himself for eight years. Obviously, it had shown.
He was thinking too much. He would deal with everything tomorrow. He went down to the basement, got his bong and little stash, took it up to the bedroom, and smoked. Couldn’t do that with Linda and Ellie there.
He exhaled a long, slow stream. Nobody to criticize him.
Freedom.
THE NEXT MORNING, as so often was the case after a big storm, it was sunny. The snow was melting fast, the icicles hanging from the gutter of the back porch dripping furiously over the disused plumbing equipment, splattering Mitch’s socks as he tried to smoke a cigarette. The bad feeling from after the robbery had returned full force. Mitch kept having to stifle the urge to grab his prepared bag of money and sundries and tear off without even saying goodbye to Doug. Couldn’t these guys see anything coming?
There was a knock on the door and Mitch froze. Jesus Christ, this was it. He began to tremble and watched the cigarette shake in his hand as he wondered where he had left his bag. Could he get to the bag and over the neighbor’s fence before the cops kicked the front door in? He tiptoed to the edge of the porch and peered around the side of the house and saw Kevin’s truck.
Shit. He was going nuts. He exhaled, surprised at his panicked reaction. He answered the front door, hoping that his little fear episode wasn’t still evident on his face.
“Dude, hope I didn’t wake you up,” Kevin said cheerfully. “I gotta walk some dogs today and I was hoping you could spot me a bud or two.”
“Sure.” Mitch went to get his bag of weed and a baggie. “Why are you walking dogs on a Saturday?”
“A couple of clients are out of town for the weekend.” As an afterthought, he added, “Linda left me last night.”
Mitch didn’t know what to say. He felt he should offer something supportive, but the only comment that came to him was that a blind man could have seen that one coming.
“That sucks, dude,” Mitch said finally, not sure if Kevin even agreed. From his cheerful demeanor, he looked like he had shed a burden rather than lost a family. Some marriages were better ended, Mitch thought, aware that he knew nothing of the subject and didn’t really intend to find out.
Doug came downstairs, sleepy-eyed and bed-headed, and nodded to them. Mitch handed Kevin the weed as Kevin’s cell phone rang.
“Dude, you want some coffee?” Doug called from the kitchen.
But Mitch was watching Kevin. “Yeah,” Kevin was saying into the phone. “I took him in my car and we buried him. I mean, I buried him. In a yard.”
Mitch could hear the other person talking; Kevin was nodding. Then he hung up. “That was weird,” he said.
“Do you want coffee?” Doug called again.
“What do you mean ‘weird’?” Mitch stood up.
“The cops found Scotch Parker’s body. He had a collar on him with a phone number. That was Mrs. Parker. She wanted to know why the cops came to her house this morning asking about her dog being buried in that guy’s yard.”
“The cops came? Over a dog?”
“Huh?” Doug shouted from the kitchen. “What’s this about a dog?”
Mitch felt his heart start thumping again, like it had a few moments before. He searched for an excuse that would make everything all right. “Maybe the guy was just pissed… about the dog being buried in his yard. Maybe…”
“She said there were three cops. They were very serious.”
Doug came out into the living room and saw the looks on Kevin’s and Mitch’s faces, confused, yet worried. “The cops went to that old dude’s house?” he asked.
They began finishing each other’s sentences again. “Which means-”
“They found the car.”
“Fuck!” yelled Kevin. “I told you we should have found a ravine. You gotta have a ravine. You can’t just leave a getaway car just sitting there.”
“But…” said Mitch slowly, still piecing things together, “… they knew to go to the lady who owned the dog.”
The three of them stood in the living room in silence while this information sank in, staring at each other, each hoping another would say something obvious and comforting which would make everything OK.
“And the lady must have given them your number,” said Mitch.
“She did,” said Kevin.
“We are fucked.” Mitch sat down heavily on the couch.
“After all that. A fucking dead dog,” marveled Kevin. “I shoulda just thrown his body out the fucking window.”
“OK, we’re fucked,” said Mitch, his paratroop commander persona taking over. He jumped up and flung open the closet door and took out his coat and started looking around for his shoes. He found them and put them on. “Here’s the deal,” he began while hurriedly tying them. “You give us up. We’ll be ready for it. All your money’s hidden. Just say you drove us out there to buy the car and that was it. Go walk dogs.”
Kevin turned to go. “Sorry, dudes,” he said.
“Sorry, man,” said Doug, still holding a coffee pot in the kitchen doorway.
“Later, man.” Mitch was a blur of activity, flying around, getting everything together. He opened his duffel bag and saw the money, the socks, and the underwear. He tried to decide if he needed another pair of jeans. Fuck it, he had enough to buy a new pair if it came to that. Kevin was still standing in the doorway.
“Gimme that weed back, man,” Mitch said. “The cops’ll be going through your shit later.”
Kevin, whose hand was noticeably shaking, handed the little baggie back to Mitch.
“Get outta here. Go walk dogs.”
As they heard Kevin’s truck pull out of the driveway, Mitch turned to Doug, who still hadn’t moved.
“Dude, last chance. I’d come with me if I were you.”
Doug didn’t look panicked or even slightly freaked out. He was standing in the kitchen doorway, coffee pot in his hand, with a serene smile on his face. “Nah, man. I’ll be OK.”
“You know you’ll go to jail. You’ll wake up in jail by tomorrow morning.”
Doug nodded. Mitch went over and shook his hand. “Later, dude.”
“Later.”
Mitch turned to leave, then turned back. “I gotta be able to get in touch with you, to pay for a lawyer.”
Doug shook his head. “I’ll have Kevin handle that.” They stared at each other for a few seconds, then Doug asked, “Where are you gonna go?”
“I dunno.”
“Good luck.”
“Same to you.” The door slammed, and he was gone. As he was running down the steps and out into the street, Mitch thought, Guess I’m not going to get a chance to paint the ceiling.