somebody opening the door, a girl named Kelly Pierce who'd only been with the bank for two years, who Donald Fields suspected the boy was secretly poking, Kelly with the famous low-cut dresses and the nice cleavage, Kelly was coming in as they were running out. Bam-BOOM, everybody knocking one another ass over teakettle, money flying every whichway, the pouches unzippered, bait money in the air like autumn leaves, Kelly knocked on her pretty tush, the vicious one and the stupid one scrambling for money like contestants in a mad quiz show, one of them firing the big Colt back into the bank putting Fields and the man Fred flat on the floor as the thieves snatched and grabbed and jumped into the car that Fields would describe to police as a “dark-blue or midnight-blue Crown Victoria—maybe a year or two old, not sure of the model year.” And two uniformed cops coming on the scene and doors being locked and people being herded into offices and interrogated, and cops everywhere.
And at 07:04:10 the dispatcher gave a coded “robbery” at an address that everybody obviously made as Buckhead Mercantile Bank and Trust, and at 07:06:00 Bureau cops picked up a “robbery-in-progress” changed to “robbery with shooting” and they gave it in the clear to homicide, who of course only take over if there is a dead body on the scene, and the five detectives working the midnight-to-eight graveyard tour were all in-house and rolled on it en masse: Bill Brows, Marv Peletier, fat Dana Tuny, Jimmie Lee, and Harry Ecklemeyer.
At 07:21:00, there were fifteen cops by the crime scene. Two uniformed officers, Ramirez and Jones. Four agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation led by SAC Howard Krug. Five Buckhead detectives, with Detective Sgt. Lee in charge of securing and seizing and protecting and preserving intact the evidence of the crime scene. Lee was in charge, as there had been a homicide committed in the course of the robbery, but he was working “with” the Federal Bureau of Investigation—plus the captain himself no less, in person, and two two-man teams of backup uniforms, all with the light bars and the sirens and the hoo-hah and the evidence van and the ambulance and employees showing up and milling around everywhere as general chaos prevailed.
But it had already happened by the time the feebs arrived with their high tech and higher self-esteem, imbued as they were with a mandate from the Lord on High Himself. It had happened long before the captain had arrived in a cloud of Gordon's and toothpaste. (Christ, the fat son of a buck must use the stuff for a mouth-wash.) It had happened when what is usually called “opportunity” presented itself, when the detective sergeant in charge had put his people to work measuring body position, taking the money measurements, searching for spent bullets, processing the crime scene, protecting the evidence, seizing ... especially the seizing part.
Lee'd gone through the doors where the bills were scattered everywhere—these deliciously crisp green rectangles of spendable, dependable, expendable lettuce leaves with TEN and TWENTY printed on them. These collectible, delectable, beautifully minted, verdantly tinted photographs of dead presidents that he was WALKING through, STEPPING on, this schlemazel cop who didn't get ten cents walking through this newly mown field of crisp twenties, and intoxicated by promise he opens the door and there's some more of the tellers’ pouches and that's when James Lee saw the opportunity and that's when he crossed over the line.
You draw a line somewhere. Right? Right. Draw one. Draw it wherever it makes you comfortable. It looks like any other line—right? It's just a line.
* * *
Wrong. It's your line. If you cross it, you put yourself on the other side of the line and at first, because it's only a line, it looks the same from the wrong side as it did before you crossed over. Right? Right.
Every night at Buckhead Mercantile, after the
And at 07:04:10 the dispatcher gave a coded “robbery” at an address that everybody obviously made as Buckhead Mercantile Bank and Trust, and at 07:06:00 Bureau cops picked up a “robbery-in-progress” changed to “robbery with shooting” and they gave it in the clear to homicide, who of course only take over if there is a dead body on the scene, and the five detectives working the midnight-to-eight graveyard tour were all in-house and rolled on it en masse: Bill Brows, Marv Peletier, fat Dana Tuny, Jimmie Lee, and Harry Ecklemeyer.
At 07:21:00, there were fifteen cops by the crime scene. Two uniformed officers, Ramirez and Jones. Four agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation led by SAC Howard Krug. Five Buckhead detectives, with Detective Sgt. Lee in charge of securing and seizing and protecting and preserving intact the evidence of the crime scene. Lee was in charge, as there had been a homicide committed in the course of the robbery, but he was working “with” the Federal Bureau of Investigation—plus the captain himself no less, in person, and two two-man teams of backup uniforms, all with the light bars and the sirens and the hoo-hah and the evidence van and the ambulance and employees showing up and milling around everywhere as general chaos prevailed.
But it had already happened by the time the feebs arrived with their high tech and higher self-esteem, imbued as they were with a mandate from the Lord on High Himself. It had happened long before the captain had arrived in a cloud of Gordon's and toothpaste. (Christ, the fat son of a buck must use the stuff for a mouth-wash.) It had happened when what is usually called “opportunity” presented itself, when the detective sergeant in charge had put his people to work measuring body position, taking the money measurements, searching for spent bullets, processing the crime scene, protecting the evidence, seizing ... especially the seizing part.
Lee'd gone through the doors where the bills were scattered everywhere—these deliciously crisp green rectangles of spendable, dependable, expendable lettuce leaves with TEN and TWENTY printed on them. These collectible, delectable, beautifully minted, verdantly tinted photographs of dead presidents that he was WALKING through, STEPPING on, this schlemazel cop who didn't get ten cents walking through this newly mown field of crisp twenties, and intoxicated by promise he opens the door and there's some more of the tellers’ pouches and that's when James Lee saw the opportunity and that's when he crossed over the line.
You draw a line somewhere. Right? Right. Draw one. Draw it wherever it makes you comfortable. It looks like any other line—right? It's just a line.
* * *
Wrong. It's your line. If you cross it, you put yourself on the other side of the line and at first, because it's only a line, it looks the same from the wrong side as it did before you crossed over. Right? Right.
Every night at Buckhead Mercantile, after the
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