Crumbtown by Joe Connelly

Author:Joe Connelly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307425409
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-17T16:00:00+00:00

41

The actor playing the bank manager backed to the wall behind his desk and held his briefcase over his chest. Tom faked a punch to the man’s stomach, then tickled him under the chin. “Mr. Landetta,” the bank manager said, “I don’t think I like working without a script.”

Tom pointed to the man’s ear, “Basically, I just hit him right here, and after that he does exactly as I say.”

“Tom knows how to make them bleed without knocking them unconscious,” said Tim.

“Mr. Landetta,” the bank manager cried.

“Okay. Okay,” said Rob to the men. “I understand you have to threaten the bank manager, but do you have to hit him over the head. I’m just afraid of sending too many conflicting signals here. You only hurt the bad guys, right?”

“But the bank manager is a bad guy,” said Tom. “That’s why I had to cut him like that, so he would look like a good guy.”

Rob smiled, “What?”

Don said, “What he means is that the bank manager was in on it. He helped set the robbery up. He asked us to hit him so that the feds wouldn’t suspect.”

Rob turned to the crew, “Okay everyone, take fifteen minutes.” He sat down in the bank manager’s seat and told Don and the twins to pull up chairs. Little Eddy stood behind them, folding his arms like Don. “Please explain,” Rob said.

“We robbed the banks for Maury Threetoes,” said Don. “He had some outstanding loans there, and this was his way of paying it off.”

“You worked for Maury Threetoes?”

“Everybody worked for him. In the banks, too. They’d report that they lost fifty grand when all we took was some files Maury needed, that the manager left in the vault for us.”

“But what about the money. You threw the money.”

“I threw the marked bills, mostly, that they keep in the drawers for the bank robbers. You throw a little and everybody goes nuts and no one even sees us walk out. Then it was like something we did, and once you get a good story going, everybody goes with it, especially the feds. Nobody ever saw this for what it was.”

“I see,” Rob pushed back his chair, hands on the table. “It was like a show.”

“That’s right.”

“Okay,” Rob said, lifting his chair, putting it down. “Okay,” he picked up his script, “excuse me.”

They sat around the desk, Tim, Tom, Don, and Eddy, watching Rob walk out the door. For several seconds no one spoke, until Little Eddy climbed on a chair, pointing at Don. “I knew it. When I first met this guy I said this don’t seem like someone who’d be throwing his good money away.”

Tim reached across the desk, faking a punch to Don’s chin, “Just like old times, hey buddy.”

Tom pulled him back to his chair. “You said no trouble, Don.”

“That’s right, no trouble,” said Tim. “Anyway it wasn’t our fault.”

Don stared at his old friends, sitting together and talking like it was all a misunderstanding. The story had changed while he was in prison.

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