Easy Money

Easy Money

Part I: Steve

Debbie said that it was lucky for us, that the weather would make for fewer people on the roads, less chance we’d be seen. Twenty-five freaking degrees? I do not like the cold.

This will be the first time I’ve ever done anything with Randy. This thing was his idea, I think, but it was Debbie that brought me into it. There’s six thousand dollars to be had and it sounds like no problem having it – if you don’t mind robbing some old lady, which I don’t.

This weather is awful, though. They’re always predicting snow, but we don’t usually get any. When we do get it, it’s pretty, covering up the trash on the ground, making the town look better than it really is. 

So, Debbie told me about this and then has Randy tell me the details. We’re planning on tricking this old lady, but they don’t really have a handle on how to do it. We’re going to tell her they’re from the city, tell her they need to look inside her house. Randy looks like a teenager and Debbie’s a girl. They need me to be the man from the city.

I told them I had a blue shirt with badges on it. It had belonged to my brother Danny, who’s doing time in the state penitentiary, back when he worked for the city. I’ve got his van, too, and it’s plain white like a service vehicle.

Debbie was Danny’s girlfriend before he got locked up. Now she’s Randy’s. She ought to be my girlfriend because I’m a lot more like Danny than Randy will ever be. But I get it. Randy is smart and Debbie wanted somebody who was not like Danny.

So, we got this plan. It’s Randy’s plan, but we’re all in on it.

I have a gun. It’s a gun Uncle Terrell gave me when I was a kid. It’s a 22, but it works. Randy said not to bring it, but I really want to have it with me. You can never tell what might go wrong. What if this old lady has a gun? Did he ever think about that?

So, I got the shirt and my van. We got what we need.

This morning, we went back over what to do. We go to the old lady’s house at a little after 12. Traffic in town is busy, but this place is outside of town. It’s on a street that zig-zags off from the highway toward Atlanta.

I drive up in front of the house, parking so that she can see the white van if she looks out the window. I get out and go up to the door with Debbie behind me.

Debbie is going to be wearing a big coat and I’m going to say she’s my trainee.

First though, I have to tell the old lady that there’s been a problem with her electric bill and that she’s being charged too much. The city is sending me to fix it, I’m gonna tell her. She opens the door – because who wouldn’t want somebody to fix it so that a bill is lower – and that’s when I tell her who Debbie is supposed to be.

I’m asking the old lady where the kitchen is because this problem is probably at the outlet the refrigerator is plugged into. When she starts to take me there, Debbie asks if she can use the bathroom.

While I’m in the kitchen, Debbie goes to the old lady’s bedroom. Randy says the money is in the bottom drawer of her chester drawers. I keep the old lady busy till Debbie comes to the kitchen. Then I make like I fixed the problem, and we leave.

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

The old lady won’t know she’s been robbed. The next time she looks for the money and it’s gone, she won’t think that it might have been the city electric guy. She’s old. If she does remember us, she sure as hell won’t remember what we looked like.

Randy says there’s about six thousand dollars there. I’m like, how do you know? He says the old lady is Dexter Lockwood’s granny and Dexter told him. We gotta give Dexter some of the money? Randy says no, that Dexter is stupid and just told this without thinking up the plan hisself.

Randy is staying in the van while Debbie and me go inside. With the weather as cold as it is, it wouldn’t be a good idea to turn the thing off and just hope it will start when we get back. It’s usually reliable, but in this weather? I don’t know. I’m leaving it running with Randy inside, out of sight.

And damn, it is snowing. So, I drive a little slower on the way, looking around to see how many cars are out and since the snow just started, there’s quite a few.

We get to the house and it’s not what I was expecting. I thought it would be something pretty nice, but it’s not. It’s a little bit bigger than the shotgun houses in mill town, but not by much. There’s a carport full of junk and the Plymouth in the driveway looks like it hasn’t moved in a while.

I asked Randy if he was sure this was the place and he said that he was.

I parked on the street and looked over at Debbie. She’s a pretty girl, but the kind of pretty girl that knows she’s pretty. The coat she was wearing had a fur collar that she pulled up to cover a good bit of her face. She said, “Here we go.”

Part II: Debbie

When Steve pulled up in front of the house, I could tell that he was scared, and it wasn’t just because of the snow. He was dim in the head like his brother Dennis, but Dennis wasn’t scared of anything. That’s why he was locked up. A little bit of scared can be a good thing. It keeps you from being foolish.

Randy and I had gone over the plan a good bit before we got Steve involved. He had the shirt and the plain white van. He was too dumb to send in alone. Somebody needed to go with him to be sure he didn’t screw it up.

While we’re going over the plan, Steve started talking about having a gun he wanted to bring with him. Randy said no. A gun would change all of this. We would go from basically pulling a scam to maybe getting charged with assault with a deadly weapon of an old lady.

I’m scared that Steve brought it anyhow.

So, it’s below freezing, and the snow has started to stick. I didn’t say anything, though. We needed to be focused on what we were doing because this was six thousand dollars: two for each of us. I could last six months on two thousand dollars if I was careful. And I was careful.

I’m not mentioning that until we get this done. I want my money and then I’m done with Randy and with Steve and with Dennis.

When he stopped the van in front of the house, I could see Steve starting to freak out a little. I didn’t want him to spend too much time thinking so I just looked at him and said, “Here we go.” I got out of the van and started around. Randy got in the driver’s seat.

We went to the door and knocked. The old lady opened it right away, like she had been standing there waiting for us. She’s tiny. I mean, I’m only 5-2 myself, but she’s shorter than me: a tiny little old lady. “Can I help you?”

Steve stutters a little, but manages to say, “We’re here about your bill. Has it been too high lately?”

“What bill?” she says.

“The electric bill,” he says. “Has your electric bill been too high?”

“It’s high,” the old woman says, just like any other old woman would have said about any other bill.

The old lady is tiny, but she’s mad, staring at him, right in the eye.

“Let me come to your kitchen,” Steve says. “I can show you what the problem is.”

“I need to go to the bathroom,” I say, but the old lady doesn’t hear me.

The old lady looks at me and says, “They got to send two of you to look at it?”

Steve is in over his head. “Let me come to your kitchen,” he says.

The old lady’s hackles are up big-time, and I can see that’s she’s not scared. She knows we’re trouble and she’s not going to let us in. I say again, “I need to go to the bathroom.”

“I can show you where the problem is and I can fix it and save you some money,” Steve says, and he sounds desperate saying it.

I could see where this was heading. She would slam the door and call the police and even if we didn’t get caught, there wouldn’t be any money: that was for damned sure.

I shoved past Steve and pushed the old lady backwards. I thought she would fall, but she didn’t. She staggered a step, and I was inside. I spun her around and pushed her face-first into the sofa. I didn’t want her looking at us any more than she already had.

I could hear Steve snatching drawers open in the next room. I’m thinking the jerk doesn’t remember where the money is. Randy had said specifically that it was in the bottom drawer in a cardboard box under some old nightgowns. Why the hell could he not find it?

I hear him cussing then. He comes out and says, “Debbie, you’re going to have to come and look for it. I can’t find it.”

“Idiot! Names!” Now the old lady knew my name at very least.

By then he was beside me, leaning into the old woman himself, holding her there. I got up and went to the bedroom and saw that he had ransacked it. The room straight across the hall was a little bathroom. There was one other door still closed. I went to it.

I opened the door, expecting to find a different bedroom, the right bedroom, but instead it’s piled high with boxes and crap: her junk room. “Damn it,” I said.

I went back to the front room where Steve continued to hold the old lady down. I leaned down to her and said, “Where is your money?”

“I don’t have any money,” she said.

Steve started to let her up and it made me so mad that I slapped his head. He leaned back into her.

“You do. We know about it. It’s supposed to be in the bottom drawer of your chester drawers in a box. Now, where is it?”

She said, “My Christmas money?”

“Yeah,” I said wondering if she thought we wouldn’t take it if she called it that.

“It’s gone. I spent it.”

Now I was mad. How did Randy get such bad information? What the hell were we going to do now? Finally, I said, “You must have started saving up again for next Christmas. Where’s that at?”

“In my sewing room,” she said.

I didn’t say anything to that.

“The sewing room,” she said. “I heard you opening doors. I know you went in there.”

“The room with the boxes?”

“Yeah, I keep it in one of the boxes in there.”

“Which one?”

She started describing where it was, but I thought there was no way I was going to go in there and find it even with her description. There was crap everywhere in that room.

“Bring her down here, Jeff,” I said, heading down the hall and expecting Steve to understand that I was referring to him. Again, it took two beats for him to catch on.

He held the old woman by the back of her neck, pushing her in front of him. I pulled my coat up high enough that she couldn’t get a good look at my face. When she got inside the room, she went to a stack of boxes and moved them around, finally pulling out one that looked – to me, at least – like every other box in the room. She fumbled and opened it as we stood behind her.

Part III: Randy

There was supposed to be six thousand dollars in the box. If anything, I thought there might be more. I told Debbie about it, hoping she could talk Steve into doing the actual theft. Her idea was better because she knew about the official-looking shirt. I didn’t want to deal with Steve. He was stupid. This needed to be simple, not simple-minded.

Debbie planned it well. None of us knew how the weather would be that day. The temperature had been around freezing for a few days. Then it dropped into the twenties and then it started to snow. I thought about calling it off, but I didn’t want to lose Steve. We could do this.

Debbie had Steve practice everything he was going to say and do. She walked him through it over and over until we were all bored to death by it. The main thing was to say he was from the city and that there was a problem with the electricity, and he could fix it and save her money. Once they were inside, the whole thing would take two or three minutes.

I thought the shirt would be enough to make Steve look like a utility worker. It wasn’t. He looked like a doofus wearing a work shirt. It was too late for me to say anything to him or Debbie. We were committed to the plan by then. I looked at him and wanted to ask if he had brought his little gun with him, but I didn’t. I just wanted to hurry and get this over with.

When we got there, Steve is like a raccoon caught in a car’s headlights and I think, “Damn. We are done for.” I thought about pulling the plug, but I didn’t. I should have, but I didn’t.

Debbie came through, getting him out of the van and headed toward the house. I watched them till they got to the door, and I realized how much snow had fallen.

Maybe five minutes passed before I heard the gunshot. That son of a bitch had brought a gun after I told him not to. He fired again and I thought, “Dumb bastard has killed her.”

I was already out of the van – which I had left running and with the door open – and was running toward the house. I can hear Debbie crying and I know it’s because she just watched that fool kill the old woman. The door pops open and Debbie comes staggering out, doubled over.

I grab her shoulders and raise her up. There is a widening red patch at her stomach that I don’t want to look at too closely.

I put my arm under her and help her to the van. I can’t very well drive her to the hospital and explain that our partner accidentally shot her while we were robbing an old lady. And I can’t walk away from that situation either, I realize.

I opened the side door and laid her down. “This is messed up,” I said. She didn’t say anything back.

I ran back to the little house, knowing that neighbors might have heard the gunshots and called the police. I needed to get Steve and the money and get the hell away and figure out what we needed to do about Debbie.

I didn’t want to see the dead old lady. I didn’t. As soon as I got inside, I yelled, “Steve!”

There was no answer. I went down the little hall and looked in the bedroom, but no one was there. I started into the junk room, but I fell, slipping in blood on the floor. My feet slid from under me, and I went down hard, banging my head on the floor.

Someone spoke my name. I turned my head and saw Steve lying on the floor beside me. Blood throbbed slowly from his neck. He was not dead, but he would be soon.

I heard my name again and looked up to see the old woman standing above me, her face filled with anger and sadness.

“Randy,” she said. Then I saw that she was holding the old Colt pistol that had belonged to my grandfather. I didn’t realize she still had it. I should have, but I didn’t.

“Hey, Grandma,” I said.