Even Steven (23 page)

People all around her stared-the way people stare at a bum on the street who talks to himself. Their faces showed mild amusement, even as they struggled to look concerned. April hated them all. Who were they to judge her? Who were they to think whatever thoughts they entertained about her?

Suddenly, the mall felt too small. April scurried away from the crowd and willed her head to stop spinning. She needed to get home, regroup, and come up with an alternative plan of action. She'd placed the fate of her baby in the hands of killers and drug dealers. Logan had him, and Carlos was getting him back. Jesus, was she crazy? April was Justin's mother, not Carlos Ortega. It was her responsibility to get him back. Certainly, it was her responsibility to make sure that Carlos didn't screw things up.

What was it that Logan had told her about the money? Two thousand dollars by tomorrow and he didn't give a shit how she got it. Two thousand or two hundred thousand, it was all the same when you didn't have it.

Rob a bank if you have to.

Those were his very words. Rob a bank if you have to.

Suddenly the little .25 in her jacket pocket weighed twenty pounds. Could it really be that simple? Could she really just march into a bank and walk out with all the cash she needed? People did it all the time. They got caught, sure, but all she needed was a couple of hours. Just long enough to get the money to Logan and to get Justin back home. After that, they could arrest her or do any other damn thing they pleased. Justin would be safe, and that was really all that mattered.

A couple of hours. She could do this. April tried to envision herself in front of the teller window with a gun in a little old lady's face, demanding all the money from the drawer. The lady would do it, of course, because that was what they were trained to do, and with the money in hand, April could solve all of her problems in one quick stroke.

Maybe she wouldn't even need the gun. She could just push a note under the teller cage, asking for what she wanted, and no one else would ever have to see anything; not until it was too late.

A couple of hours. That was all she needed.

Jesus, what the hell was she thinking? Robbing a bank? Was she out of her mind? People went to jail forever for bank robbery. Nobody cared what the justification was. If you threaten somebody's money, then you can absolutely count on a long ride to a jail cell. Do not pass go, do not collect . . . well, it had better be more than two hundred dollars.

April had wandered into Macy's and found herself staring at a rack of shirts. Men's dress shirts, wrapped in plastic, their folds knitted together with a thousand straight pins.

Along the back wall, over the display, April saw the words Credit Department, written in pewter-colored relief over a squared-off archway. The same letters went on to announce Customer Service, Public Phones, and Rest Rooms, but April didn't care about any of those other things. The credit department was where they kept the cash. She knew this from the time she'd gone to Monkey Wards to fight for her refrigerator and they kept her waiting on plastic furniture while the credit executive took care of more important matters. If this place was anything like that one, the credit department looked very much like a bank, complete with teller cages and cash drawers. Plus, so far as she knew, robbing a credit department was a local crime, not a federal one, for whatever that was worth, and it had to be worth something, didn't it?

Two thousand dollars would mean nothing to these people. They had single dresses in here that sold for more than that. Dresses that were worth more in their eyes than the life of her son. What kind of world was this, anyway? What kind of world would ever spin so far out of balance?

The lights were brighter on the other side of the archway, and the surroundings much less opulent. The business conducted in here, she realized, was the business of money, and where money is involved, no one has time for decorations and plush carpeting. Besides, how many reasons were there for customers to come back here? Certainly the rich ones with their perfect credit and their limitless Visa cards never had to deal with people behind cages. No, this area of the store was set aside for the deadbeats.

Only two tellers worked behind the elevated bank of windows, both of them women, and of the two, only one seemed to be receiving customers. The other, younger than the first by at least thirty years, seemed lost in counting money for her drawer. Cash. Thick stacks of it, and it didn't take but a small stack to make two thousand dollars. She knew this because it had only been a couple of hours since she'd carried nearly that much in her purse. The older woman, who looked maybe fifty years old and needed a trip to the hairdresser to take care of a root problem, sat closest to April and seemed to be suffering some kind of indigestion as she lifted her drugstore-issue reading glasses from their perch on her sagging breasts and planted them on her nose so she could squint at whatever it was that the customer had slid over to her. She started shaking her head even before she started reading, setting into motion the loops of the little red chain that tied the glasses to her neck.

"No, you see, dear, this isn't proof of anything. This is the letter that you sent to us. I need to see what we sent back to you."

The customer, who appeared way too young to have three children clinging to her legs, looked as if she might cry. "But I couldn't find my copy," she whined. "Don't you people keep copies of your own letters?"

The lady behind the cage laughed. "Oh, sure. I happen to keep copies of every letter the company writes right here in my pocket."

The words, and the tone with which they were delivered, angered April. She had no idea what had transpired, but she sure as hell recognized the body language. This mother was late on her debts, and the store was making her life miserable. They'd make sure that no other credit card company would trust her, and they'd file reports that would render even her checks useless. If she was more than a few weeks late, they'd start calling her home every night, and they'd talk to her boss and co-workers, ostensibly to locate her, but in reality doing everything they could to ruin her reputation. April had come to understand that debt collection was a form of legalized blackmail, and unless you were lucky enough to be one of the victims who attracted the attention of a television news program, nobody would give a shit.

April tried to look like the very essence of calm as she strolled over to the little writing podium across from the teller cages, but felt as if she were wearing a Watch Me sign around her neck. On the podium, she found cubbies full of forms and catalogs, and even a stack of stubby, poorly sharpened pencils, but no scratch paper. Finally, she found a Customer Comment form with enough space at the bottom for her to write what she needed. The block she chose on the form read, "Please tell us any way that we can make your visit to our store more enjoyable." In big block letters, and with an amazingly steady hand, April wrote:

Give me all the money in your cash drawer. Do not panic, and do not set off any alarms. I have a gun.

Once done, she looked at the note for a long moment, making sure that it said exactly what she wanted it to say, then slid into line behind the woman with the squirming kids. She should be feeling panicky, she thought. Her heart should be racing, and her hands shaking, but she in fact felt a surge of pride that she was doing none of those things. Maybe it was because there was still time to change her mind. Up until the instant when the bitchy clerk read the note, she could just walk right on out of there and no one would be the wiser.

It's for Justin, she told herself. Anything's legal when your son is in jeopardy.

"I can help you over here, ma'am."

Startled, April looked up to see the young lady in the other cage flashing a bright, genuine smile at her. She waved her arm at April. "My drawer is ready now. I can take care of you."

April shot a glance at Queen Bitch, who sneered back at her.

Her mind screamed, Wait! I'm not ready yet. I need to speak with this lady. But she didn't say that. She didn't say anything, in fact. She just sidestepped out of the line and walked the five paces over to the teenager whose name plate identified her as Debby.

"What can I do to help you?" Debby asked.

Oh, Christ, she was friendly! April didn't want to have to look in the eyes of someone who was friendly. She wanted that sour-faced bitch who was making the young mother cry. How could she go through with this?

"Are you okay, ma'am?" Debby asked, her face wrinkled into a look of genuine concern.

April managed to nod, but that was all. Her voice refused to engage.

Those emotions she'd noticed were gone had all returned now, and suddenly, she didn't know what to do about it.

"Can I help you?" Now Debby talked to her as if she were slow-witted. Perhaps if Debby spoke slowly and enunciated carefully, her customer could understand.

Still speechless, April looked down at the slip of paper in her hand, and then back to Debby. Hesitantly, her hand slid forward across the ledge that separated them.

Their fingertips met, and Debby had to pull hard to slide the note out from under April's hand.

As soon as the note left her touch, April knew that she'd made a mistake. "No, wait," she started to say, but Debby had already unfolded the note and read it in what felt like two seconds. Color drained from the teller's face, and her mouth dropped as she inadvertently took a step backward, away from the counter.

"Oh, my God," Debby breathed, and she brought a hand up to her mouth. Her eyes filled with tears. "Oh, my God!"

The old bitch next door heard her and turned away from the customer with the kids. Instantly, she recognized the look for what it was and moved quickly to open Debby's cash drawer. "Just give it to her," the older teller said urgently. "Just give her what she wants."

But Debby continued to unravel. She couldn't move, her trembling fists clenched on either side of her jaw. "Please don't kill me," she begged. "Please, please don't shoot me."

Now the mother with the kids understood, and her eyes grew huge as she pushed the little ones behind her and started inching backward toward the door. "Oh," she moaned. "Ohhh ..." Under different circumstances, she would have sounded like a ghost.

The older teller pulled handfuls of bills out of the drawer and shoved them onto the counter, not saying a word, and studiously avoiding eye contact. "Here you go. Take whatever you want. Take it all if you'd like."

April still hadn't moved, frozen in place by the fear of the others. In her jacket pocket, her hand closed more tightly around the little .25, and as it did, she felt a dash of panic herself. Everything was happening so quickly, yet it felt like entire days. The money stacked up on the

counter-mostly twenties and smaller bills, it looked like, but she saw a couple of hundreds in there, too.

"Take it," the woman said again, shoving it closer to April. "Just don't hurt us, okay?" Several of the bills fell over the edge and floated lazily toward the floor.

That's when someone screamed. Not a bloodcurdling scream like in a horror movie, but a high-pitched, piercing "Oh my God!" that made everyone whirl to face the door. A young mother with a baby stroller had just entered and, at the first sight of what was happening, yelled and dashed back out toward the men's department. When the mother was out of sight, April heard her shout, "Oh my God, somebody's robbing the store! She's robbing the store!"

Shit!

The panic was very real now, and April realized that she didn't have a chance anymore.

"Take it!" the old teller insisted, and for an instant, April wondered if this woman wasn't anxious for her to take the money and get away.

April reached for it, then hesitated. She needed two thousand dollars. Every penny of it. Eight hundred or twelve hundred wouldn't do it, and with the bills forming such a loose, unbound pile on the counter, she'd never be able to grab that much and still get away. If she'd be able to get away at all.

"Take it!"

No. It wouldn't do. It wasn't enough, and taking too little would ruin her life for nothing. She decided to leave it there.

Saying nothing, she turned for the door. The abruptness of the move made the customer with the clinging kids yell and fall to the floor, protecting her children with her arms and her body.

Back in the men's department again, April moved quickly, winding her way through the maze of racks and shelves. She told herself that this was a stealthier-and therefore safer-route than the wide, unobstructed main aisles. Her meandering path made it impossible for her to run, but maybe that was okay. Maybe by not running, she'd be able to slip out of the store before this all grew to be too large to control.

"There!" someone yelled, and April whipped her head over her left shoulder to see a small army of young men and women approaching.

None of them wore uniforms, and none had weapons drawn, so she could only assume that they were store security people.

April broke into a run. She was busted now; no sense in trying to take her time or to blend in with the surroundings. They had her dead to rights, and her only chance for getting away was to make a break.

It had been a long while since April had run full tilt, but in the old days she'd been pretty fast on her feet. Despite the baby in her tummy, the racks of clothes flew by as she zeroed in on the big opening leading to the mall. Salespeople and shoppers alike shrank away as she headed toward them, and in the spot near the men's shirts where the aisle narrowed to virtually nothing, she collided with a wide, round rack of half-priced shirts and lost her balance, stumbling into some stacked cubby-holes and launching a ridiculous mannequin to his death.