Read Online Slice by Rex Miller - Free Book Online

the word HELP with his mouth. It might be worth a try.
    They pulled up on the east side of the bank at one minute before seven and the driver untied him. Fields tried to rub the circulation back into his hands and arms. His confidence was returning. He thought about what he could do. Weighed his options. The driver had been asking about his wife, wondering why he had been alone in the house. He was expert at sizing a man up and these were stupid men. He could outthink them if they gave him half a chance.
    Then they were all getting out of the car. He'd been instructed on what to say and do inside. The vicious one was going to go with him into the vault. The stupid one would watch the guard and janitor. Nothing about alarms, cameras. They weren't professional bank robbers. He doubted if they were professional anythings, these hillbilly jerks.
    He unlocked the east door of the bank as he'd done four or five thousand times before, but he was shaking so badly he could hardly fit the key into the lock. They came in behind him and he threw the main lights on, the way he always did, and as he hit the switch he felt a pistol jammed against his spine,
    “I'm just turning the lights on.” They walked on into the main part of the bank, coming in the east door, and Fred was mopping and said, “G'morning,” like always and the stupid one motioned at him with the gun and a finger over his mouth in the shut-up sign, and the janitor dropped his mop and raised his hands just the way Fields had, only he said, “Oh, please, don't—"
    “SHUT CHUR FACE ” the vicious one snarled at him in a stage whisper, poking Donald Fields in the spine again for emphasis, and they all walked across the main lobby in the direction of the big vault. “MOVE GODDAMMIT,” he snarled, and they moved quicker, Fred and Donald first, the other two behind them with their guns out, looking for the security man, who for some reason was nowhere in sight.
    The store burglarized the week before had decided to display a couple of handguns with the rifles in their window. It was something they almost never did but the .380 auto had been returned by a customer who nitpicked about rust on the case-hardening, and the big Colt Python had been gathering dust in the showcase for so long they thought that maybe if they moved a few pieces around a little they'd shake something loose. They shook something loose all right. Two nights later thieves broke the window and took both handguns out.
    “Hurry,” the mean one whispered in Fields’ ear, bathing him in a foul mouth odor, “ya’ got fifty-nine seconds to MOVE! ” And it seemed to take forever to unlock the gate and swing the big, heavy door back, and they walked in over the wire grate that of course Fields hadn't disengaged, and the silent alarm was thrown for the second time. Fields gathered up the seven zippered teller pouches with the bait money, taking as much time about it as he could. The vicious one ripped the pouches from his hand and took off running screaming across the lobby at the stupid one, who was standing there with his gun on Fred the maintenance man, “LE'S GO! ” Which is when the night security guy, Floyd Coleman, stepped out from behind one of the pillars with his .357 Magnum revolver just like Clint Eastwood in the movies only instead of saying, Make my day, he started to say, Drop those guns or drop your pants or drop something, but only the dr came out because John Monroe had pulled the trigger of the .380 auto, shooting him smack dead bang in the ticker and knocking him back like he'd been punched in the stomach by a heavyweight and he sat back and the four of them watched him die with his gun in his hand, dead as he sat there with his eyes still open, going slowly back, toppling over backward almost as an afterthought, the gun firmly in his hand but pointed over to the side, and Monroe and De Witt shagging ass with the teller pouches full of money and almost out the north doorway. But