Dead Boys by RICHARD LANGE Read Free Book Online Page B

us! — sitting around hefting pistols and discussing timing while studying maps Moriarty had drawn of the various banks he’d cased — it was hilarious. I remember laughing to myself the first time we actually drove out to scout an escape route, because I knew an hour later I was going to be home playing patty-cake with Sam and helping Maria clean the bathroom. That was real life. My life.
    So how, then, do I explain what happened next? I don’t. I can’t. BOOM! There I am, standing in one of those same banks on legs that are shaking like a pair of Slinkys. I’ve got a gun in my hand and pantyhose pulled over my head, and when I yell, “Get down on the floor!” you’d think it was the voice of God rumbling out of a thundercloud, the way the customers throw themselves at my feet. I’d always imagined that when you crossed the line you saw it coming, but it turned out to be more like gliding over the equator on the open sea. Don’t let them kid you, it’s nothing momentous, going from that to this.
    E L JEFE PHONES early Monday morning with an offer of a few days’ work on a house in Los Feliz. He was a bigwig in the Nicaraguan army until they ran his ass out on a rail after the revolution. Now he’s got a rinky-dink painting business here, with most of his jobs coming through flyers he leaves in mailboxes and under windshield wipers. When white people hire him, he calls me in, because he jacks up his prices for Caucasians and figures they won’t complain as much if some of it is going to a fellow gringo. Besides that, white women feel more comfortable with one of their own around, he says, “to keep an eye on us thieves and rapists.” It’s a hundred tax-free bucks a day, and it’ll keep my mind off the heist.
    The house is a big, two-story Spanish-style that we’re taking from dull tan to something slightly darker. It’s me and a couple of short, silent Guatemalan Indians doing the labor, with El Jefe supervising between cigars and chats on his cell phone.
    The best thing about painting is that it has a rhythm that allows you to drift away. On this morning I run through our first Christmas in the mountains, tweaking the vision bit by bit until it snaps into perfect focus, right down to the broken-glass sparkle of the new snow, the pop and hiss of the logs burning in the fireplace, and the smell of the tree that Sam and I will cut down and drag home through the wintry woods. It’s such a pretty picture that the sun chewing on the back of my neck doesn’t bother me at all, and I’m almost reluctant to put down my brush and descend the ladder when lunch rolls around.
    I get the sandwiches and thermos of lemonade that Maria made for me out of the cooler in the bed of my truck and settle against the shady side of one of the palm trees planted in the strip of grass between the street and the sidewalk. The Guatemalans sit on the curb some distance away, talking quietly as they peel back the foil from their burritos. We haven’t exchanged two words all morning, but that’s the way it goes on these jobs. I think they know why El Jefe brings me around, and I’m not about to stroll over and plop myself down beside them and give them a “we’re all in the same boat” speech, because we’re not, and they know that, too.
    El Jefe pulls himself out of his dented BMW, where he’s been sitting with the air conditioner blasting for the last half hour. He mutters something to the Guatemalans, who bow their heads and nod, reluctant to meet his gaze, then marches across the yard to check our progress. Out of habit, I guess, he still carries himself like a military man — back straight, shoulders squared, one hand always resting on his hip, where his sidearm would be if he were in uniform. It’s funny seeing him strut around like this now that he’s gone soft and sprouted a belly, but I don’t dare laugh, not with those crazy eyes of his and his history.
    He walks into the backyard and then returns a few minutes