The Nirvana Blues (50 page)

Since then, nobody had fucked with the First State People's Jug.

Half paralyzed by fear, Joe remained seated, casually casing the joint through discreetly hooded eyes. Probably, they would have to ice Tom Yard even before the robbery commenced. Park right about here, dismount feigning abject indifference, stroll into the money bin with checkbooks drawn, saunter up behind the cold-blooded oaf, pull out an army .45, and empty the clip into that Frankenstein, praying at least one projectile would scramble a vital organ seriously enough to deck the fanatic behemoth.

And don't forget to cock the goddam gun beforehand, either!

“Brilliant, Miniver! Positively brilliant!” All he needed right now, to make his life complete, was a murder rap on top of everything else!

Little boys playing cowboys and Indians had more grown-up approaches to the cultivation of robbery and mayhem. Joe Miniver, in his fourth decade, was a downright vestal moron.

It couldn't work. The notion was absurd. Eloy can't have been serious.

Joe opened the door and slouched past Tom into the bank. Cool air enveloped him like sophisticated female arms. Approaching the high-ceilinged hushed room from the perspective of a criminal made him slightly dizzy. An invisible force squeezed his testicles; a large drop of lemon juice landed on the raw oysters of his internal abdominal organs. And his buttocks tingled.

Assuming a nonchalant pose at a central check-writing table, Joe allowed his eyes to wander around lazily. Five tellers currently handled a half-dozen customers. On a deposit slip Joe wrote:
five tellers.

A bank officer reached over a low walnut barricade at the west end of the marble-tiled floor, fingered a buzzer releasing the catch on a thigh-high partition door, bumped the door open with her hip, and trotted briskly past two tellers into the open vault. Joe checked the time—were those little flecks of dried brain material around the clock, or only a minor rain seepage from the roof?—and wrote on his deposit slip:
3:17, vault open.

For a moment he counted functionaries. Added to those five tellers against the south wall, were seven higher officers seated at ponderous walnut desks among partitions and glass cubicles along the north side of the room. Eloy would have to cover them, while Joe terrorized a teller.

He wrote:
7 officers, north side—Eloy.

Oops, here came that chic lady out of the vault: he'd forgotten about her. During the real thing, an extra, unaccounted-for person popping up like that could blow the entire show.

He followed her back to her desk, and noted:
One more officer … check vault.

Barely had he finished writing, however, than a short, pudgy woman in a navy-blue skirt and white blouse appeared in a doorway on the western edge of the room, having just climbed upstairs from what must be basement offices.

Cover stairwell … downstairs offices.

Next, a mechanized voice greeting a drive-in banker made Joe realize that through the archway just behind the row of south-side tellers, at least one, and possibly two, drive-up personnel were hard at work.

In fact, here came one now—a slim aristocratic woman in her early twenties: she clickety-clacked westward behind the tellers and spent a few seconds leafing through the current depositor's records to make sure a check would clear.

Don't forget drive-up windows!

A seeing-eye camera mounted high on the wall over the bank manager's desk east of the tellers' windows seemed to peer directly at Joe. He stared at it lackadaisically for a few seconds, before realizing the exact nature of seeing-eye cameras; and, in a sickening adrenal spurt of panic, he wondered, Had that goddam remote-control TV just filmed his eyeballing and note-jotting venture?

Did those things transmit pictures all the time, forging videotape cassettes that could be played back in a courtroom against him? “Now Mr. Miniver, let me call your attention to approximately three-seventeen on the afternoon in question. If it please Your Honor, we would at this time like to draw the shades and activate our videotape machine.…”

Joe knew absolutely nothing whatsoever about the habits of fiduciary seeing-eye apparati. Suppose a man downstairs, whose sole purpose in life was to monitor transmissions from aboveground, was right now phoning County Sheriff Eddie Semmelweis to report a suspicious-looking character upstairs reconnoitering the spread in a most provocative way while scribbling surreptitious notes on a deposit slip?

“Wake up, Joe. Get out of here, nebbish!”

By the time his crumpled deposit slip landed in the bottom of a tall, empty wastecan, Joe was almost at the door. A foolish grin and an innocent shrug took care of Tom Yard; then he practically sprinted for the Green Gorilla. But as the door slammed and Joe hit the starter button, a terrible thought illuminated the crimson light bulb in the puffy cartoon balloon above his head.
They had the act on videotape, including the way he'd crumpled that deposit slip and left it behind as evidence!

“Better get it back, shmuck, fast!”

But if he returned so quickly, obviously flushed, and nervous as a trapped jackal, they'd nail him on the spot. It would be over before he had even decided if they should rob it or not.

Could they put you in jail simply for casing a joint? Or for mulling over a criminal idea?

Tom Yard was back inside, no doubt eyeing everybody and fingering the release strap on his holster, just waiting for a nerd like Joe Miniver to burst through the doors and start scrabbling around in wastebaskets. Joe could see it vividly: Just as his fingers touched the crumpled deposit slip, Tom cut loose a barrage; the first slug severed his spinal cord. Bent double, Joe's body sagged, crunching into the bottom of the can. And with a terrible clatter, he tipped over—immersed in tin from the waist up—and rolled noisily across the floor, leaving a sanguine trail, ignominious death personified!

Joe giggled nervously: what an absurd vision! After all, having done nothing, he was still as innocent as the daisies. But it would be crazy to rob that bank: they didn't stand a chance.

*   *   *

J
OE FIRED UP
his jalopy. But just as the Green Gorilla was about to hightail it out of that parking area in order to attack, with joyless abandon, the clogged arteries of Chamisaville's open road, the snout of a large army Colt .45 automatic slid through the driverside-window area and settled against the tip of Joe's blackhead-studded nose.

A voice, muffled behind one of those grubby gorilla creations, said, “Hello, Joe, what're you up to? Cathing the moneybin for a pothible heitht? Thath a no-no, my friend.”

“Me? Who? What?” Oh my God, here it came for sure:
Eternity!
Joe's first instinct was to stick fingers in his ears, thereby at least avoiding the noise. But his second, more to the point reaction, was to budge not even a millimeter.

“You and me are gonna take a little ride,” the gorilla mask said. “Ith that okay by you?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Thure. You could make a break for it and I could crothet the entire textht of Revelationth acroth your back in hot lead.”

“Some choice.”

“Bueno. Jutht hold it thteady, then, while I thircle around to the other thide, you got that?”

“I won't make a move. I wanna live.…”

The guy was six feet tall, and scrawny. An acquaintance, perhaps, the lisp a ridiculous disguise? But what did he mean, “take a little ride?” Like Jimmy Hoffa? Were cohorts out there in the bushes and the brambles waiting to measure Joe for a cement overcoat and toss him unceremoniously into the Rio Grande after poking the muzzle of a .45 against the back of his head and giving him a one-way ticket to Hades? What else did gun-toters do when they took you for “a little ride”? I better make a run for it, Joe thought. Open the door, tumble out, gallop screaming (and zigzagging) for the bank …
too late!
The gorilla mask climbed through the passengerside window, and settled in beside Joe, poking the .45 uncomfortably into his ribs.

“Juth do what I thay and you won't get hurt, Joe. Now, let'th pull out of here—thlowly, inconthpicuouthly—no horn-blowing.”

“The horn doesn't even work,” Joe whimpered scornfully.

“Tho much the better. Turn left here.”

Joe hung a louie onto Placitas Street and braked for a hardhat brandishing a Stop flag before a busily excavating backhoe.

“Ignore him, Joe. We're in a hurry.”

“But I'll hit the backhoe.”

“Thcrew the backhoe; you can thircumnavigate it.”

“But … I … all right … okay!
Ouch.
You don't have to prod me with that thing.”

Yet as he began to swing around, the flag man leaped in front of the Green Gorilla, screaming, “Hey, buddy, who do ya think ya are? I said stop! Are you blind? Look at my flag!”

Inclined out the passenger window, the gorilla mask aimed at the loudmouth. “We happen to be prethed for time,” he said calmly. “That'th what thith .45 automatic ith all about.”

The flag man blanched. “Okay, excuse me, sir. I didn't understand.
Hey Bill, get that fucking machine out of the way, we got some folks in a hurry here!
”

A hundred yards farther along, the gorilla mask ordered Joe right onto Santistevan Lane. Cutting up to the North-South Highway, they turned left again, heading north toward the Dynamite Shrine complex. A mile below the shrine, they swung into a macadam driveway running beside a high adobe wall of the old McQueen estate, which now belonged to the mysterious and ubiquitous Tarantula of Chamisaville, Mr. Joseph Bonatelli.

Nervously, Joe said, “Why are we coming here?”

“Ever been inthide theeth inthcrutable wallth, Joe?”

He indicated no, almost paralyzed by fear.

“Then thith'll be a real treat for you.”

Joe gulped. His kneecaps tingled. He had an urge to gun the truck, fling open his door, spin the wheel, and tumble out, praying not to break his neck, at least making a stab at escape. But as soon as he thought of it, the plan seemed stupid. His captor would pull triggers the second a door flew open. By the time Joe landed he'd be sawed in half by high-powered slugs. No, he stood a better chance if he just kept his mouth shut, acted stupid, and prayed for miracles.

A meadowlark atop the wall yodeled melodiously; black-and-white Clark's nutcrackers played noisy games in the tops of fir trees visible above the high adobe barriers. Joe slowed down: in the middle of the driveway a large raven was gnawing on a dead rabbit.

“That'th you and Mithter Bonatelli,” the gorilla mask joked.

“Which one is me?” Joe yukked, trying to kill his panic with a moronic pleasantry.

“Ha ha. You're a barrel of laughth, Joe.”

A large metal gate barred access to the inner sanctum. But as Joe commenced braking, his kidnapper produced a remote-control apparatus, aimed at the gate, and pushed a button: the elaborately scrolled iron doors swung open: the truck puttered smoothly inside.

Their tires crunched against polished Florentine gravel. Crocuses, hyacinths, and daffodils lined the route. Croquet wickets gleamed by a goldfish pond at the foot of a budding weeping willow tree. Although bright daylight, gas lamps burned atop antique wrought-iron poles. Robins tugged fat worms out of the carefully manicured lawns. A large Saint Bernard, oblivious to their incursion, playfully rolled in the grass, toying with a cow skull beside a luminescent blue spruce tree. Stone lions guarded the front walkway; the Green Gorilla coughed to a shuddering halt in front of them.

“Journey'th end, Jothé. Out you go.”

“Why are you bringing me here?” Joe descended from the stinking truck. “What's going on?”

“That'th for me to know, and for you to find out.”

“But I'm innocent. I haven't done anything. I'm just a two-bit everyday shmuck.”

“Joe, pleathe. Thkip the heartth and flowerth. I only do what I'm told to do. Don't make it hard on me.” With a menacing jerk of his big gun, he ordered Joe around the truck and between the lions.

“I'm not trying to make it hard on you. I just don't understand. I don't even
know
Mr. Bonatelli.”

“But he knowth all about you.”

Flagstones, flanked by hydrangea bushes, hollyhocks, tall jaune irises, and other assorted rainbowalia, carried them to the leaded glass door of the mansion. Joe cast a last frantic glimpse around as his captor punched the doorbell. A zillion trees, bushes, leafpiles, little grottoes, bubbling streams, and goldfish ponds studded the lush grounds. They could bury me somewhere, Joe thought, and I'd never be found. The job would probably be done with a gun muted by one of those tennis-ball-can-looking silencers. Or perhaps one goon would strangle him with piano wire, while another repeatedly ice-picked him in the chest.

His head cried, “Make a break … run away … karate-chop this turkey … grab his gun … head for the hills.…” But his arms were paralyzed, his feet stayed glued to the flagstones—even his fingers had gone numb.

A Pueblo maid opened the door. Grasping Joe's elbow, the gorilla mask said, “Let'th go,” and propelled him inside. Joe barely had time to register a regal interior of Persian rugs, sixteenth-century French étagères, original Flemish art, and Tibetan draperies, before they passed through lovely french doors onto a patio beside a heated swimming pool, where a very fat man wearing a blue beret, a gaudy Hawaiian shirt, a black European bikini, and beach clogs sat in a white metal patio chair with his pinkie-ringed hand resting atop a circular glass and latticework white metal table.

One-way sunglasses hid his eyes: below them, cruel teeth and fat lips clenched a Havana cigar. A pet ferret on a pink leash attached to the leg of his chair dozed on the warm tile. A single yellow rose protruded from a silver bud vase on the glass-top table. Beside it lay a Magic Marker pen and a grapefruit.