spenders and you got them.”
“So what’s your method, professor, sir?”
“Simple as socks. Everything opposite. Never rob a bank if you ever got caught or booked for anything. No confederates— do it alone and don’t tell a soul, nobody. Forget dames. And don’t spend it. Put it away, maybe for years. Then, when you’ve got some excuse for having some money, bring it out a little at a time and invest. Don’t spend.”
“How about if the robber got recognized?”
“If he covers his face and don’t talk, who’s going to recognize him? You ever read descriptions by eyewitnesses? They’re nuts. My cop friend says sometimes when they’d plant him in the line-up, he got picked out over and over again. People swore their eyes out he did whatever it was. That’ll be six bits, please.”
Ethan put his hand in his pocket. “I’ll have to owe you.”
“I’ll take it out in sandwiches,” said Joey.
The two crossed High Street and entered the alley that right-angled from the other side. Joey went in the back door of the First National Bank on his side of the alley, and Ethan unlocked the alley door of Marullo’s Fruit and Fancy Groceries on his side. “Ham and cheese?” he called.
“On rye—lettuce and mayonnaise.”
A little light, grayed by the dusty iron-barred window, came into the storeroom from the narrow alley. Ethan paused in the twilight place shelved to the ceiling and stacked with the cartons and wooden cases of canned fruits, vegetables, fish, processed meats, and cheese. He sniffed for mice among the seminal smells of flour and dried beans and peas, the paper-and-ink odor of boxed cereals, thick rich sourness of cheeses, and sausage, reek of hams and bacon, ferment of cabbage trimmings, lettuce, and beet tops from the silvery garbage cans beside the back door. Perceiving no rusty must of mouse, he opened the alley door again and rolled the covered garbage cans into the alley. A gray cat darted to get in, but he drove it away.
“No you don’t,” he remarked to the cat. “Mice and rats are feed for cats, but you’re a sausage nibbler. Aroint! You hear me—aroint!” The seated cat was licking a curled pink paw but at the second “aroint” he hightailed away and scrambled over the board fence behind the bank. “That must be a magic word,” Ethan said aloud. He returned to the storeroom and closed the door after him.
Now through the dusty room to the swinging door of the grocery—but at the cubicle of the toilet he heard the whispering of seeping water. He opened the plywood door, switched on the light, and flushed the toilet. Then he pushed open the wide door with wire-netted glass peekhole and wedged it open, kicking the wood block firmly in with his toe.
The store was greeny from the drawn shades over the big front windows. Again shelves to the ceiling, filled neatly with gleaming canned and glassed foods, a library for the stomach. On one side—counter, cash register, bags, string, and that glory in stainless steel and white enamel, the cold cabinet, in which the compressor whispered to itself. Ethan flipped a switch and flooded the cold cuts, cheeses, sausage, chops, steaks, and fish with a cold bluish neon glare. A reflected cathedral light filled the store, a diffused cathedral light like that of Chartres. Ethan paused to admire it, the organ pipes of canned tomatoes, the chapels of mustard and olives, the hundred oval tombs of sardines.
“Unimum et unimorum,” he intoned in a nasal litanic tone. “Uni unimouse quod unibug in omnem unim, domine— ahhhhhmen,” he sang. And he could hear his wife commenting, “That’s silly and besides it might hurt somebody’s feelings. You can’t go around hurting feelings.”
A clerk in a grocery store—Marullo’s grocery store—a man with a wife and two darling children. When is he alone, when can he be alone? Customers in the daytime, wife and kiddies in the evening; wife at night, customers in the daytime, wife and
“So what’s your method, professor, sir?”
“Simple as socks. Everything opposite. Never rob a bank if you ever got caught or booked for anything. No confederates— do it alone and don’t tell a soul, nobody. Forget dames. And don’t spend it. Put it away, maybe for years. Then, when you’ve got some excuse for having some money, bring it out a little at a time and invest. Don’t spend.”
“How about if the robber got recognized?”
“If he covers his face and don’t talk, who’s going to recognize him? You ever read descriptions by eyewitnesses? They’re nuts. My cop friend says sometimes when they’d plant him in the line-up, he got picked out over and over again. People swore their eyes out he did whatever it was. That’ll be six bits, please.”
Ethan put his hand in his pocket. “I’ll have to owe you.”
“I’ll take it out in sandwiches,” said Joey.
The two crossed High Street and entered the alley that right-angled from the other side. Joey went in the back door of the First National Bank on his side of the alley, and Ethan unlocked the alley door of Marullo’s Fruit and Fancy Groceries on his side. “Ham and cheese?” he called.
“On rye—lettuce and mayonnaise.”
A little light, grayed by the dusty iron-barred window, came into the storeroom from the narrow alley. Ethan paused in the twilight place shelved to the ceiling and stacked with the cartons and wooden cases of canned fruits, vegetables, fish, processed meats, and cheese. He sniffed for mice among the seminal smells of flour and dried beans and peas, the paper-and-ink odor of boxed cereals, thick rich sourness of cheeses, and sausage, reek of hams and bacon, ferment of cabbage trimmings, lettuce, and beet tops from the silvery garbage cans beside the back door. Perceiving no rusty must of mouse, he opened the alley door again and rolled the covered garbage cans into the alley. A gray cat darted to get in, but he drove it away.
“No you don’t,” he remarked to the cat. “Mice and rats are feed for cats, but you’re a sausage nibbler. Aroint! You hear me—aroint!” The seated cat was licking a curled pink paw but at the second “aroint” he hightailed away and scrambled over the board fence behind the bank. “That must be a magic word,” Ethan said aloud. He returned to the storeroom and closed the door after him.
Now through the dusty room to the swinging door of the grocery—but at the cubicle of the toilet he heard the whispering of seeping water. He opened the plywood door, switched on the light, and flushed the toilet. Then he pushed open the wide door with wire-netted glass peekhole and wedged it open, kicking the wood block firmly in with his toe.
The store was greeny from the drawn shades over the big front windows. Again shelves to the ceiling, filled neatly with gleaming canned and glassed foods, a library for the stomach. On one side—counter, cash register, bags, string, and that glory in stainless steel and white enamel, the cold cabinet, in which the compressor whispered to itself. Ethan flipped a switch and flooded the cold cuts, cheeses, sausage, chops, steaks, and fish with a cold bluish neon glare. A reflected cathedral light filled the store, a diffused cathedral light like that of Chartres. Ethan paused to admire it, the organ pipes of canned tomatoes, the chapels of mustard and olives, the hundred oval tombs of sardines.
“Unimum et unimorum,” he intoned in a nasal litanic tone. “Uni unimouse quod unibug in omnem unim, domine— ahhhhhmen,” he sang. And he could hear his wife commenting, “That’s silly and besides it might hurt somebody’s feelings. You can’t go around hurting feelings.”
A clerk in a grocery store—Marullo’s grocery store—a man with a wife and two darling children. When is he alone, when can he be alone? Customers in the daytime, wife and kiddies in the evening; wife at night, customers in the daytime, wife and
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