Эд Макбейн: Guns

“No, it’s just it’s so hot,” Colley said.

“Well, either way, the choice is yours, friend.”

“You’d go in there alone, huh?”

“That’s right.”

“End up in jail before the night’s out,” Colley said.

“Ain’t nobody ever going to bust me again,” Jocko said. “You don’t have to worry about that, I can take care of myself.” He spread his hands wide, said, “So that’s it,” and looked at his watch. “It’s quarter past seven now, the liquor store closes nine o’clock on Saturday nights. I want to go in about five to, what do you say, Colley?”

“Well, I can’t let you go in there alone.”

“I told you that’s no worry of yours.”

“If I don’t go in with you,” Colley said, “I guess that’s the end of us three, huh?”

“I guess so,” Jocko said.

“End of the Three Musketeers,” Teddy said.

“Well, I can’t let you go in alone.”

“Then you still with us?”

“I’m still with you,” Colley said.

“Good,” Jocko said.

“Good,” Teddy said.

In the movies, it was always a caper. The movies made it sound like somebody dancing a jig in the street. A caper. Fun and games. Mastermind plots it down to the last detail, everybody rehearses it, gets everything down like clockwork, the day of the job something goes wrong. Crime does not pay. The thing that goes wrong is something the mastermind never thought of in a million years. Or else it’s something about one of the characters. A flaw in his character, like he digs girls in boots. The day of the job a girl in boots marches by, he takes his eyes off the bank guard, watches the girl, there goes the caper.

Those two girls in boots that night in Jocko’s apartment. Ginny and whoever — the blonde was the one whose name he’d forgotten, and the blonde was the one he’d gone to bed with. Surprised she didn’t keep her goddamn boots on in the sack. Took off everything but the boots, went parading around the room for the longest time, tiny tits, narrow hips tufted blond crotch hair, looked like a teenager in a kinky English movie. Colley finally asked her was she going to march around the room all night long. The blonde said she was loosening up. He told her to come get in bed, he’d loosen her up. If it hadn’t been for the blonde, he probably wouldn’t have thrown in with Teddy and Jocko. Well, the gun, too. Jocko bringing him that gun, must’ve cost him a good two-fifty on the street, that was what decided him. He began to feel like himself again, hefting that gun in his hand. Yeah. That was the part they forgot to mention in all the movies. The gun. Well sure, how could they? Do a thing that’s about a caper, all the guys talking about a fuckin caper instead of a job, then the gun becomes a minor part of it. The major part is the clockwork timing and the breathless suspense that’s going to lead up to that girl in boots walking by at just the crucial moment— Alice, that was her name.

They forgot to mention the gun.

They forgot to mention what it felt like to have that big mother gun in your hand, to know that when you went in there and shoved that piece in somebody’s face, why, that person was going to look at that gun, and his eyes were going to go wide, and you were going to smell the stink of fear on him, man, and from that minute on, from the minute you yanked that piece out of your coat and saw his eyes bug with fright, you were the boss. And from that minute on, you knew the man there was going to get off his money and hand it to you nice and peaceful.

Here’s your caper movie, Colley thought; here’s tonight’s job the way it would be in a caper movie. We go in, right? I’ve been bitching about the heat all day long, so at the very last minute I wipe sweat out of my eyes and I miss seeing the cop on the beat who’s coming around shaking doors. The cop barges in the liquor store with his gun blazing, shoots Jocko in the back, and is putting the cuffs on me even before I’m finished wiping away the sweat. End of caper.

Or else how about this, yeah, this would be even better. We go in the store, right? Jocko does his number with the old man, I’m standing watching the outside, everything goes off without a hitch. The old man opens the register, nobody comes anywhere near the store, we’re home free and are running to where Teddy’s waiting with the car. But right at the crucial moment, a black cat crosses my path. And since I’ve been worried about this being number thirteen and all, why, naturally I panic and shoot the fuckin cat and we get the whole damn precinct up there down on our asses in ten seconds flat. Also end of caper.

In real life, nothing like that ever happens. In real life, a job ends only one of three ways. You get the money and you get away; or you don V get the money, but you get away; or you don’t get the money, and you get busted besides. Usually, if there’s trouble, it’s because somebody blows his cool. Now, unless you’re dealing with amateurs, the person who blows his cool is not one of your people. A dude holding a gun has nothing to worry about, he’s the one in control of the situation. What causes the trouble, usually, is some fat lady beginning to yell at the top of her lungs, or the guy who owns the store all of a sudden deciding to become John Wayne, or even just a passer-by outside seeing the action in there and marching in to make a citizen’s arrest. Blow your cool when somebody’s holding a gun on you, and you’re forcing that man to use the gun. And that’s trouble.

A man going in someplace with a gun had to be ready to use it, of course, but Colley hardly knew any robbers at all who actually wanted to use it. You found some kooks, yes, who enjoyed blowing a man’s brains out, but they were in the wrong racket, they should have been hiring out to do contracts instead. Your armed robber was a man who showed face, don’t forget; he went into a place unmasked, usually, and one reason for his sticking a gun under a man’s nose was to scare the guy not only for now but for later, too. If you scared him enough, he wouldn’t be so quick to identify you if you happened to get picked up later. The chances of getting picked up, unless it was right at the scene, were pretty slim anyway. What’s the guy going to do, wade through hundreds of mug shots of armed robbers? That was for the movies, too. Guy sitting at a desk with patient, kind detective. “That’s the man, Officer! I’d recognize him anywhere!” Bullshit.

You shove a gun in a man’s face, he suddenly loses his mind, his memory, his courage, and ten pounds of weight. “See this, mister? I’ll shoot your face off you don’t open the register fast. Now do it!” Colley had heard Jocko using that same line a total of twelve times now. He said it the same way each time. Each time the man opened the register. Fast. There was something in Jocko’s voice that told the man he meant business. Jocko would use the gun if he had to. The man knew it, and the man didn’t want to get shot. That was simple arithmetic.

In one of the holdups — this was a Mom and Pop grocery store in Queens, they hit it on a Friday night in April, gorgeous spring night, this was about six o’clock the place was just closing. Teddy was outside in the car, it was a car he’d boosted that afternoon, they always used a stolen car on their jobs. Jocko went in, walked straight to the counter, Colley came in behind him, was closing the door when he heard Jocko doing his monster routine. “See this, mister? I’ll shoot your face off you don’t open the register fast. Now do it!” This was Colley’s cue to take his own gun from his pocket, keep it low, under the glass panel of the door, but have it ready to bring it up if there was trouble of any kind. The old ginzo behind the counter was opening the register almost before Jocko got the words out of his mouth. This store had been hit four times already by two different gangs, that’s why Jocko had picked it, cause it was an easy mark. The guy’s wife was standing right alongside him. She looked a little like Colley’s Aunt Anna, big fat Italian lady wearing a black dress, faint black mustache over her lip. She was scared but at the same time angry, and you could see she was thinking her husband was a coward for not doing something. This was the fifth holdup here, and all the guy did was open the cash register each time. Which he was also doing this time.