Slice by Rex Miller Page B

vicious-looking stranger was there on the stairs with a gun pointed out at him, saying, “Youuns jes’ be sweet now an’ turn aroun'.” As though in a dream he held his hands up just the way they do on TV and turned and felt one of his hands being pulled back and something going tight around him. Then the other hand went back and—OUCH—it was tight. He heard the door slam. Someone else was coming in. He thought, OH GOD, a whole gang of them, coming in to rob and assault and kill him, and thank God Clara was gone. The other one telling him not to move or try anything and was racing around him and up the stairs. Footsteps were coming up behind him, and a stench, and he heard another voice snarl as it pulled him back down the stairs,
    “Yessireesir. Git y'r faggot ass down them stairs, ya’ lily-white pussy boy. Ya’ don’ wanna make me HURT ya,” and on the word “HURT” he felt all the wind shoot out of him and he was down on the carpet with an intense and awful pain in his kidneys and he could feel tears of anger about to well up in his eyes and fear as he wondered what these madmen wanted. If he could just get to the alarm in the front hall, he thought, but he was on his face with his hands behind him, and doors were slamming and he heard the tall, thin man saying to another one, “Pull the car up to the door. Go on.” And he was being rolled and something heavy and bad-smelling was around him and he realized he was being rolled up in a throw rug. Why were they doing this? And then doors slammed and he was lifted up from the floor, and he said, “Please just tell me what you want,” and one of them snarled a response, but he couldn't hear it through the rug. Then he was afraid he was going to suffocate, he was being crammed into something tight and he couldn't breathe and he thought he was being kidnapped and these insane men were going to make Clara pay to get him alive and he never connected it with the bank until several minutes later when the car stopped and they took him out in an open field and explained to him what it was they wanted.
    “Now youuns lissen up real good, heah?"
    Fields nodded. His hands were bound but he was otherwise unhurt. He wondered how far he'd get if he tried to kick the one in the groin and run. Just take off running into the nearby trees.
    “We gonna untie ya, and weuns gonna all go downta the bank. An’ ya'll gonna go in and get me a lotta money, unnerstan'? ‘N iffn’ ya fuck us over we'll drop you right there like a DEAD ROACH, ya git it?"
    “Yes.” He nodded that he comprehended.
    “We gonna go now."
    “Uh, sir?"
    “Eh?"
    “The time lock doesn't disengage until seven a.m. I can't get you any money until seven."
    “What the—” the one named Monroe started to say. “Hold it, shaddup, what the fuck ya’ talkin’ about time lock?"
    Donald Fields explained to them about the overnight procedures, how all monies were locked up in a vault with the time lock as a safety precaution.
    “And we can't open the vault before seven.” It wasn't true, but he thought it might buy him time.
    “Shit, that ain't no problem. It's almos’ seven now anyway, shithead. We gon’ innair, and jus’ waltz on inna that vault with ya, and you gon’ git us alla money ya can carry in sixty seconds. ‘At's alla time ya got. At sixty one seconds I start pullin’ the trigger.” He fired a round into the dirt beside Fields’ feet. It sounded like an eight-inch naval gun going off. Donald Fields wondered if he'd make it through the day alive and in one piece.
    “How many people's innair at seven?"
    “Just the night security man and the maintenance man most of the time. Then people start showing up a little after seven. It varies."
    “Fuck it. Les’ go.” They got in the front seat. The tall, thin one in the driver's seat, the other one on the passenger side, with Fields between them, his hands still bound. He thought about how to signal to a cop if he saw one; how to pantomime