The Sids sat across from each other at their kitchen table, Senior lost in thought, Junior amped from the adrenaline rush.
“I still think we could do them all,” Junior said. “I want to do them all.”
“We’ve been over this before. It’s too risky.”
Junior’s hand slapped the table. Hard. “Then what the fuck did I drive all the way up there for? Answer that for me, will you? Jesus, an entire week of surveillance in that God forsaken shithole of a town and now you want to just let it go? Who retires to Osceola anyway?”
Senior sucked in his cheeks and exhaled through his nose. Maybe he’d trained his child too well. Or too hard. Sid Jr. could be a handful, that was for sure. Junior wanted it all, and anything less than that would be considered a failure. Sid Sr. shook his head then pointed at the map on the table. “Look, everyone else is either right here in Indy or within fifty miles. He’s the only one that’s out of the area. You want to blow the whole deal over one guy?”
Junior didn’t answer. Asked a question instead. “You’re turning chicken shit on me, aren’t you?”
Senior pointed a finger at Sid Jr. “Don’t you talk to me that way. Did it look chicken shit to you when that Trooper’s melon popped? Chicken shit my ass.”
“It was pretty good shootin’, I’ll give you that,” Junior said. “But listen, we may have a little problem.”
“What?”
“I lost some brass.”
This time it was Senior that slapped the table. “God damn, girl. That could be a problem, right there.”
“No, no, listen. I think it’s okay. It’s not good, but I’m not printed anywhere and neither are you, so if they find it, and they probably won’t, what good can it do them?”
“Aw, they’ll find it,” Senior said. “We killed a cop. There’s no way they won’t find it.”
Junior wasn’t so sure. “I still think it’s okay. They don’t know to look for it. We fired four shots total, right? Yours, and my three. I picked up two, but the third was hot. That’s how I lost it. Slipped out of my hand and rolled right down the storm drain. Unless they pull the grate and look in there-and why would they-they’ll just think we took them all. Besides, you know the cops aren’t all that smart to begin with. Hell, half the time they can’t find their own ass with a GPS unit and a how-to video.”
“It’s not the cops, though, don’t you get it? If the cops don’t catch us in the act, we’re probably okay. But those fucking crime scene techs? They scare me. They can figure some shit out.”
“Aw, that’s a bunch of TV bullshit.”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, like I said, we’re not printed anywhere, so all they could do is hang us after the fact anyway, and if it comes to that, it won’t make much difference. It’ll be fuck you very much and good-bye, know what I mean?”
They bantered back and forth like that for a bit before they got back to work, checking their gear, loading their supplies for the next run, but all the while, somewhere in the recesses of Senior’s mind, he heard himself say it wasn’t too late to back it down, to toss the whole thing in the shitter and flush it away like a bad memory. Live and let live and all that jazz. But he wasn’t really listening to himself and so in the end he never really heard. It was too bad for that cop, no doubt about it, but it really was the only way-the banker had to go.
They still had another one to do later today. By tonight the city would be shocked. By tomorrow they’d be worried. By the end of the week they’d be shit-faced with panic.
And this was just the beginning.