Bank Job (6 page)

Tom's initial delight had disappeared. “Not really. By the time I got the bag the thing was just about over and done. But I still don't like the idea of going to jail.”

Billy looked at him. “Look, the banks we pick are going to be small ones, right? No big banks with crowds of people. And it's not like we're breaking into the vault to steal a million bucks. We take small bites only. We're minnows, not sharks. They don't know there's been a robbery until it's over. You won't be seeing the inside of a jail, trust me. It's perfectly safe. Two handoffs. Two different bags. Everyone on the move. Foolproof. Look, you did a great job, Tom. Be proud of yourself.”

Billy turned to me, sprawled on an orange beanbag near the door. “You too, Nails. You did a fantastic job.”

I blushed with pleasure.

I fought that night with Tom—tangled with Tom.

He'd said he didn't want to tangle with me ever, but it seemed to me he needed a reminder.

It wasn't the boys' turn to use the bathroom first; it was mine and Lisa's. But Tom pretended to forget. He did that sometimes. Once he was in there with the door locked, there was nothing Lisa and I could do but wait. And wait.

His excuse was that he didn't like going in after me because I left a mess, hairs and toothpaste and a wet floor. So he said. But he exaggerated. I wasn't any worse than anyone else.

The house's one-and-a-half bathrooms for six people often led to temper tantrums—shouting and yelling, thumping, door-slamming.

Joseph and Janice had rules. Rule number one: maximum time in bathroom at bedtime—ten minutes. There was a digital clock beside the mirror. Rule number two: everyone left the room tidy for the next person. Rule number three: we took turns for who went in first. Girls' night, boys' night.

But tell Mr. Tom Okada that.

When Tom came out and saw me glaring at him, he went all innocent. “Wasn't it our turn? I could've sworn you guys were first last night.”

We yelled at each other for a while. We tangled.

I was the first to quit.

What was the use? Tom would never change.

He wasn't courteous, like me. Or amiable. Sometimes he was quite despicable.

NINE

APRIL 6

Holdup number two was the Toronto Dominion Bank. There were only a few people in the bank— three customers and maybe four bank staff.

It was raining. I was standing outside the bank entrance, heart hammering same as last time. I had my foot in the door as Billy slouched up to the counter in his disguise. I could hear his harsh, scary voice but couldn't make out the words.

The teller was young. She freaked out.

“Help!” she screamed. “Help!”

Everyone froze, including Billy.

Then he turned and ran, pushing through the door and dumping his disguise into my shopping bag. It all happened so fast I didn't have time to think.

As Billy disappeared around the corner, my legs went weak and I almost fell to the ground. But I took a deep breath and pulled myself together. Had anyone seen Billy ditch his disguise? Expecting to feel a heavy hand on my shoulder any second, I clutched the shopping bag to my chest and walked casually—though I was shaking like a paint-mixing machine—to the children's toyshop where Tom waited.

Without a word, he grabbed my bag and quickly stuffed it into his backpack. Then he headed toward the SkyTrain station. I looked around. Everything was quiet. People were walking by like normal. No angry mob running out of the bank.

I headed for the train station, too frightened to look over my shoulder.

Half an hour later, we met in Billy and Tom's room.

Billy grinned. “Was that scary or what?”

I collapsed into the orange beanbag. “That girl screaming scared me half to death. It was a bummer.”

“Friggin' bummer!” said Tom, cracking his knuckles. He glared at Billy. “So your plan isn't exactly foolproof, Billy.”

Billy shrugged. “I meant foolproof against getting caught. We weren't caught, were we?”

Tom sulked. I said nothing.

Billy said, “There's not much I can do if someone freaks out. She was a cuckoo bird, that teller.”

“You looked scary and you sounded scary, Billy,”

I said. “Maybe that was the problem. It was like a horror movie. What if you just smiled nicely and spoke in a normal voice? The girl wouldn't have been so terrified and she wouldn't have screamed.”

Billy laughed. “But I need to scare them a little,” he said. “Maybe I should pull a crazy face, go cross-eyed or something.”

“It's not funny.” Tom slid off his bed and lay on the floor by the window, stretching himself out. “We didn't make a nickel on that robbery, not one cent. In fact, if you factor in the cost of the wear and tear on our shoes, we lost money.”

Billy stared at the ceiling and said nothing. He looked relaxed and at peace with the world. Holdup number two had been a failure. But so what? I knew what he was thinking. There was always a next time.

Tom started jerking his arms and legs, as though trying to shake poison from his limbs. Then he sat up and stared out the window at the SkyTrain tracks. “This reminds me of something my dad used to say.”

“What's that?” I asked him.

“It's an old Japanese proverb. ‘Taste everything, but swallow only what tastes right to you.' And I'm telling you guys, this whole thing tastes downright foul to me.” He pounded the windowsill with his fist then continued staring out the window.

I couldn't look at Tom's slumped, sad back another minute. I went to my own room to lie down and close my eyes. I was shivering. I crawled into bed.

And worried.

What were we doing? Where would it end?

I pulled the covers over my head, the girl's terrified scream still echoing in my ears.

TEN

Tom admired and respected Billy. He always had, right from the beginning.

When Tom first started school, some of the other kids bullied him. Why? Who knows, but Tom had three possible strikes against him: he was small, he was a total nerd, and he was Japanese Canadian. There are always racists. You can't get away from them. And there are always bullies. Do I sound like I'm fifty years old? Well that's the way I feel sometimes.

My best friend at school was Liesel Fischer. Liesel noticed Tom being bullied at lunch hour one day. She pointed out Brad Stoker and Frank Drake, well-known tenth-grade morons, at the edge of the field picking on Tom Okada. I told Liesel that Tom was the new kid at my foster, and we ran over to help him.

Tom had been standing, rigid with anger, fists clenched. I yelled at them to pick on someone their own size. All that got me was an earful of insults. It seemed to affect Tom though. He threw himself at Drake, but he didn't get far because Stoker tripped him. Tom fell to his knees.

Liesel and I jumped in. She aimed a blow at Stoker from behind and it connected with the back of his neck. Stoker spun around and punched Liesel's shoulder. She reeled backwards. I tried to kick Drake, but I missed as he stepped away, sneering at my incompetence. Tom tried to stand, but Drake pushed him over with his foot. Tom scrambled to his feet and threw himself once again at Drake, but Drake punched him hard in the stomach. Tom doubled over, gasping.

That was it. They were too big and too strong for us. Their punches and slaps were more than we could handle. I grabbed Tom, and the three of us ran off as Drake and Stoker hollered insults at us.

That night I told Billy what had happened.

He listened. We never saw much of one another at school, me and Billy, because we had our own friends. “Leave it to me,” said Billy quietly. “I'll see what I can do.”

Tom and I did the dishes after supper the next night. Tom had this thing about scrubbing pans. He hated it more than anything. I didn't care, so I washed and he dried and put away.

Once the clatter of dishes, pots and pans made it hard for anyone to overhear, Tom said, “Our friend Billy is some piece of work.”

“What do you mean?”

“You should've seen the way he scared the crap out of those two guys who picked on me yesterday.”

“Drake and Stoker?'

“Who else?”

“What did he say to them?”

Tom grinned. “It was great. They were calling me names again—you know, the usual kind of stuff— when Billy comes over and grabs them by their jacket collars.

“By their…?”

“I was stunned. He had them in a real tight grip, up round their necks, choking them almost, one in each hand. It was like King Kong coming out of the jungle and catching a couple of noisy monkeys. Billy lifts both of them up at the same time. So they're dancing on their toes, and he says real quiet like, ‘Don't like to see you messing with my pal, see.'”

“Wow!”

“He lets them go and they…”

“You're slowing down. Keep drying. Then what happened?”

“They fall to the ground, and then they stagger around trying to suck air into their lungs. When they're finally able to speak, Drake yells, ‘You gonna be sorry you did that, mountain man.' Stoker goes, ‘I'm telling the vice-principal you almost killed us, fag.' Billy goes, still real quiet and calm, ‘Get lost, jerks.

You bother my friend one more time and I'll rip your stupid heads off.'”

“That's what he said? He'd rip their stupid…?”

“That's exactly what he said.”

“Wow. That Billy! What did they do?”

“Nothing. They were too scared. You should've seen their faces.”

“I bet.”

“Then we just walk off and leave them there, spitting and gasping. It was unbelievable. You should've been there, Nails. You would've fractured your ribs from laughing so hard.”

As far as I knew, Brad Stoker and Frank Drake left Tom alone after that, which was one of the reasons we loved Billy so much.

And why Tom decided to go along with robbery number three.

ELEVEN

APRIL 11

“We haven't hit a Royal yet, have we?” Tom asked Billy nervously. Crack-crack with the knuckles. We were sitting in a half-empty SkyTrain carriage, traveling from Burnaby to New Westminster.

Only a week had gone by since our first holdup, and already this was our third.

Billy had a hit planned on the Royal Bank close to the Columbia Street SkyTrain station.

“I wish you wouldn't do that, Tom,” Billy complained mildly.

“Do what?” asked Tom.

“Play with your bones,” said Billy. “Every time you crack your knuckles it reminds me of what we've got inside us. Bones. Blood. Guts. Yuck.” He shuddered.

“Sorry,” said Tom.

Billy answered his question. “No Royal Bank. Not yet. We've hit a Montreal and a Toronto Dominion. This will be our first Royal, right, Nails?”

I nodded. “Right.”

“Equal opportunity bank robbers, that's us,” said Billy, flashing his buccaneer grin.

Tom cracked a knuckle. Billy groaned.

“Sorry.”

We followed our usual plan.

I was worried. What if a teller screamed again, and we had to make a run for it? I didn't think I could take another scare like that.

There was the usual rain.

Tom waited in a doorway about twenty paces from the bank on the same side of the street.

Billy and I headed for the bank. It was a small bank, recently updated to include a vestibule with two
ATMS
. Billy pulled on the handle of the heavy glass door. An automatic opener took over and the door swung outward.

I followed him inside and we stood at the
ATMS
like we were about to use them. I took a look around. No security stiffs. But we already knew that from checking out the place a few days ago.

There was only one customer. No lineup. Three tellers, two of them available, a youngish man and a woman. I hoped Billy would choose the woman even if there was a chance she might scream like the last one. Men played violent video games and believed in Superman. Men were aggressive wannabe heroes. Men could be dangerous. The woman had a friendly face.

I hated this part, the seconds before the robbery. My stomach ground like a cement mixer, and I wanted to throw up. Not Billy though. He loved it. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Billy peel away from my side. He didn't say anything before he left. The rule was silence.

Billy walked up to the young teller with the pleasant face. The sign on her counter said,
Customer Service Representative
. I felt bad that we had to scare her. I had to remind myself that I was Nails. Hard as. Plus, we were doing this for an excellent cause— keeping the family together.

A woman with a baby and a toddler was fussing with the hood of the baby's stroller, preparing to go out in the rain. The toddler looked up at me with enormous brown eyes. I held the door open for them, then left the vestibule and waited outside, shopping bag ready, heart pistons hammering like an engine in a five-ton truck.

Seconds later, the job was done. Billy, relieved of his money and disguise took off toward the SkyTrain station. He was clean. There was nothing to connect him with the robbery.

As I moved away from the bank with my shopping bag, I was guessing that the blood pumping through Billy's pirate veins and arteries was a Niagara of happiness.

I wished I could feel the same.

I made my silent handoff to Tom, cramming my bulging bag into his backpack.

I was clean. I took a deep breath of relief.

Tom headed to the Columbia SkyTrain station, taking his time.

I waited a few minutes, listening for the wail of the police siren, before strolling toward home in the rain.

I had a pounding headache.

When I got home, I flicked off my shoes and coat and headed straight upstairs to the boys' room. It was warm in there and smelled like dirty socks. Billy was sitting cross-legged on his bed. He took a big bite out of an apple.