Bank Job (3 page)

Billy and Tom liked the Musketeers movie too. We even watched all the extras. I loved their slogan,
All for one and one for all
. Loyalty and friendship. Cool! If only we—Billy and Tom and I—could be like the Musketeers and fight for Janice and Joseph and Lisa. And for ourselves of course—we didn't want to break up the family. Nobody wanted to be carted away to some foster horror home.

That was when the idea hit me. Why couldn't we try to raise the ten grand for the extra bathroom? The three of us. The Three Musketeers.

Why not?

The next morning I was still thinking about the Three Musketeers and at least two of us having to leave the Hardys'.

Everyone was up early. Tom helped Janice make waffles while Lisa and I did our usual Saturday chores, stripping the sheets and pillowcases off our beds and getting the wash started. Billy helped Joseph with outdoor chores, fixing the back fence and sweeping leaves off the front walk. Janice called us all when breakfast was ready.

Janice and Joseph were quiet, not their usual cheerful selves. We were pretty quiet too. All except Billy. His face was flushed and his appetite was as good as ever. He even drained the dregs from the bowl of sliced fruit Janice served with the waffles.

After breakfast Janice took Lisa out for a haircut. She wanted me to come with them, but I had decided to grow my hair out.

Billy said to me and Tom, “Wanna take a walk up to the park?”

I could tell he had a plan and I wanted to find out what it was, because I had a plan too.

There was no rain, but there was a damp chill in the air. We grabbed our rain jackets. Janice, on one of her shopping sprees—she called them shopping seizures—found them at The Bay's winter sale for less than half price. Mine was black, Tom's was green, Billy's was gray, and Lisa's was red. Except for the colors and the sizes, they were identical.

Patterson Hill Park was at the end of the block, a short walk from the house.

We settled around a picnic table.

Billy sat on the table, feet on the seat. He obviously had something on his mind. He would have something damp on his behind if he sat there for too long. I did a few leg stretches, leaning against the table.

The park at that hour on a Saturday morning was busy with walkers and joggers. Tom bounced his basketball impatiently, frowning at Billy. He should have known better than to try to rush him. Billy always took as much time as he needed.

Finally Billy said, “So what do you guys think we should do about this extra bathroom business?”

“Huh? There's nothing we can do,” said Tom. “Not so far as I can see anyway.” He tossed his ball from one hand to another. “I agree with the regulations. One bathroom for six people is ridiculously unsanitary. I used to have my own bathroom. All to myself. With a shower and a whirlpool tub. Four bathrooms we had altogether, three of them en-suite, for three people, can you believe it? That was before my mom and dad…” He stopped.

Silence.

Billy looked at Tom. “So you don't mind leaving the Hardys'?”

Tom said nothing. I couldn't see his face because he'd turned away from us.

I said, “I bet there's something we can do. We could be like the guys in that movie last night, the Three Musketeers, working together, all for one and one for all. We could go out and get what we need. I bet we could raise the ten thousand.”

Tom turned to me, annoyed. “Ten thousand bucks! It might as well be a million! We're just kids. How can we raise that kind of money? Sell raffle tickets, maybe? Pet and babysitting? Dog walking? Yeah, right. Sometimes, Nails, I think you're friggin' brain-damaged or something.”

Brain-damaged. I felt my insides shrink. A giant hand squeezed my heart.

Billy looked at me and nodded slowly. “Nails is right. There is something we can do.”

I smiled up at him. At least he didn't think I was brain-damaged.

“Oh yeah?” said Tom.

“I've got a plan,” said Billy.

“What kind of plan?” said Tom.

Billy said, “The way I see it, the only way we're ever gonna get the kind of money we need is…” He paused, looking at me, then at Tom.

“Is?” Tom said, kicking the picnic table impatiently. “Is what?”

“Steal it,” said Billy.

“What?” Tom's dark eyebrows disappeared under his spiky black hair.

“Funny,” I said, but I didn't laugh. “Tell us another one, Billy.”

“I'm serious,” said Billy. “I've thought it all out. We need to be like the Three Musketeers. Nails is dead right. We need to go out and take what we need.”

“What?” Tom stared at Billy. “No way. I hate the friggin' idea. You won't catch me stealing. Besides, the Three Musketeers never actually stole anything, did they?”

“Yes, they did,” said Billy. “They stole from the bad guys and gave to the good guys.”

“No, they didn't,” said Tom. “You're getting them mixed up with Robin Hood.”

“No, I'm not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“The Musketeers gave to the good guys.”

Tom said, “Didn't you watch that video last night? Were you awake? They weren't stealing money. They were protecting the king. Tell him, Nails.”

“We'd be protecting the family,” Billy said before I could open my mouth. “Same thing.”

“You're so full of crap,” Tom said, “Stealing is for losers. Everyone knows that.”

“Just who were you thinking of stealing from?” I asked.

“The bank,” said Billy, casually checking out his fingernails.

Tom's jaw dropped. For once he was speechless.

Billy smiled his slow smile.

“The bank?” I said. “You're kidding, right?”

“No, I'm not kidding. The bank is the obvious choice. It's the place with all the money.”

Nobody said anything. Billy stomped his long legs on the picnic table's seat, grinning at us like a happy Buddha.

Then he said, “Think of Joseph's old gangster movies. Think how easy it is. You walk into a bank, you tell them it's a holdup, and you walk out with their money. Remember Edward G. Robinson in—I forget the title—and Steve McQueen in that St. Louis movie? And Gene Hackman in
Heist
?”

“But they had guns and knives. Or something serious and scary,” I said. “And besides, they're only movies, not real life.”

“Sometimes bank robbers have a note. Just a note. No weapons.” Billy made his voice deep and scary. “A note and a scary voice.”

“You'd never get away with it,” Tom said. “You're a total lunatic.”

“But we would. My plan is foolproof. The reason bank robbers get caught is because…gather round while I give you a lesson in advanced physics.”

Tom stared.

“Bank robbers get caught,” said Billy, his voice lowered, “because they don't work together like pickpockets.”

“Pickpockets?” I said. “What do pickpockets got to do with it?”

“And what's advanced physics got to do with it?” asked Tom.

Tom was a straight-A science student.

Billy answered Tom. “Advanced physics is the universal movement of bodies and particles. Matter and energy.”

“So?”

“For us, money is the matter and we're the energy.” He turned to me. “A pickpocket is smart. As soon as he steals a wallet, he hands it off to a partner faster than the speed of light. His partner then disappears. That way, if the mark feels his wallet being lifted and he grabs the pickpocket, or if the police catch him, the pickpocket looks innocent because he hasn't got the wallet. Get it?”

Tom said, “I get it all right. It's not advanced physics, it's advanced garbage. Your mind has snapped, Billy. Totally snapped.”

“There'd be nothing to it. We could raise the ten grand in no time flat. Don't you see?”

“No way.” Tom shook his head. “I don't want to hear any more.”

With that, he stomped away like he wanted to crush every worm and bug in the rain-soaked turf.

Billy called, “No point going off mad, Tom. Come back and talk. Be reasonable.”

Tom hesitated. I could see he was trying to decide what to do. Finally he shook his head and came back. He stood, hands on hips, unconvinced, waiting to hear what other craziness Billy had to deal out.

But I spoke first. “Tom's right, Billy. It's nice of you to try figure out a way we can all stay together with the Hardys, but kids robbing banks makes no sense, no sense at all.”

Billy shrugged at me and smiled.

When Billy smiled at me like that, I'd do anything for him. A spurt of happiness gushed through me. My heart skipped and my face flushed. As Jane A. would say, Billy was an exceedingly amiable young man.

Then he smiled at Tom as well.

Tom shrugged and looked down at his shoes. “Sometimes, Billy,” he said quietly, “I think you ought to be in a lunatic asylum, not in a nice sane place like the Hardys'.”

Billy laughed and looped an arm round Tom's shoulders and we all walked back to the house together.

FOUR

MARCH 11

A whole week had gone by and we hadn't come up with any other ideas for raising the money. Tom had spent some time on the phone, but judging from his tight lips, I didn't think he'd managed to scare up the necessary funds.

Billy tried talking us into his crazy bank robbing scheme again, but we told him to shut it. His smiles and persuasive manner weren't working.

Ten grand was on my mind. I had an idea Mom might be able to help out.

My mom is Carolina Ford. She lived less than an hour away in a co-op apartment on False Creek in Vancouver.

I set off to visit her. The SkyTrain was crowded, and I had to sit beside an old geezer who was reading
The Province
newspaper.

I don't like old geezers. I was in a foster once that had an old geezer in it. That one, I don't ever want to think about. I tried to think about something else.

Money. I thought about money. Lots of money. Billy wanted us to rob banks. Tom hated the idea. It was risky and dangerous. If my idea worked out we wouldn't need to steal.

I watched the Burnaby landscape flash by. A seat on the other side of the train became vacant so I moved. The old geezer stared at me over the top of his paper. Tiny pig eyes.

Like Elizabeth Bennet, I definitely wouldn't wish to make his acquaintance. He was not an amiable person at all—probably a despicable one.

I ignored him. I could see the distant towers of Vancouver.

I got off at Granville Station and took a bus to False Creek. My mom's co-op apartment is on Commodore Road, close to the seawall and a short walk from Granville Market.

I walked up the sidewalk edged with bright green ferns and colorful spring flowers—even if it wasn't quite spring yet—and I let myself in with my own key. Mom was watching
TV
in her bathrobe, as usual, with a can of Coke in her hand, also as usual.

Zero activity and sugary drinks were making her plump.

“Hi, Mom. How are things? Did you remember to eat breakfast?” A quick glance around the messy apartment told me all I needed to know.

Maybe Mom and I were alike in lots of ways.

My mother is mentally handicapped.

I have trouble convincing myself sometimes that I'm not mentally handicapped too. Take school. Except for English, I'm pretty hopeless. I hardly ever get things right, especially in math. Most of my grades are awful. I'll be glad when I don't have to go to school anymore.

Mom's got the mind of a child, even though she's an adult. She is able to take care of herself only with the help of social service agencies. But she's sweet and always cheerful.

I sat beside her on the sofa and gave her a big hug. She hugged me back.

I got up. “I'll scramble some eggs. Your favorite. Would you like that? Scrambled eggs? And toast, if there's any bread. Just relax. Breakfast will be up before you can say ‘as the stomach turns.'”

Mom watched soaps most of the day, from
The Young and the Restless
in the morning through to
Guiding Light
in the late afternoon. I've watched them with her ever since I was a little kid, with the social worker supervising until I was twelve.

So far, Mom had said nothing. She just watched me with her happy baby smile. But now she said, “Don't trouble yourself about breakfast, Sweetie. I'm not so hungry.”

“It's no trouble. You don't feel hungry because of all that sugar water you're swilling. After you've had breakfast, I'll do your hair. Would you like that? Would you like me to do your hair?”

Mom's hands flew to her dark hair, thick and tangled. “Oh, would you, Nell? I'd like that an awful lot. I love you doing my hair.”

Mom was almost forty. When she was twenty-four, she married John Ford, also mentally handicapped. Then they had me, their first and only child. My father worked at the corner gas station at the time.

I was taken away from them after only a month, because the government said they were incompetent parents. Social service agencies tried to help them care for me, but it was no use. When it came to babies, Carolina and John didn't know what was the top and what was the bottom. They went to the Dairy Queen or the movies and left me alone. I was left unwashed and unfed for hours while my mother watched
TV
. She didn't understand. She thought babies cried to exercise their lungs or something.

The neighbors blew the whistle on them.

How do I know all of this? Because I read the newspaper story years later.

There was a court hearing.

The paper said the new baby (me) was in danger and should be removed to a place of safety. That's how they put it: “removed to a place of safety.”

The experts described the baby (me) as “a normal little girl with normal potential.” I never believed that. I mean, how can two mentally handicapped people have a normal baby?