I was in a cold sweat. I was driving; Raul and Emily were in the car with me. Raul had got sentenced for the heroin. The hearing had been that Monday. It was Tuesday. Raul said the judge had let him out because it was his birthday that week. He’d ordered Raul to turn himself in on Friday so he could go to prison. Raul would be gone for a year and a half. Possession with intent to distribute. It seemed like a long time to me but I didn’t know anything.
Emily and I needed to find some heroin. We had been sick for two days. Raul was having no luck helping us. He was calling everyone he knew. No one was picking up. Probably because he was going to prison he was making people nervous.
I was throwing up in the little green trash can. I was always careful to keep an eye on the road when I did this. Emily said, “Hang in there, baby. Something’s got to come through soon. It’s been too long.”
“I’m right as rain,” I said and wiped the vomit off my chin with the back of my hand, “close enough for rock and roll.”
Raul didn’t give any sign that he minded my vomiting in the little green trash can while I was driving. He just sat there, calm as if nothing foul were transpiring. It was polite of him.
“Hold on,” he said. “Here we go.”
A silver Mitsubishi Galant pulled out in front of us.
“Pull up beside that car,” he said.
I did and Raul rolled the window down and waved at the Galant. “He’s about to turn,” he said. “Get behind him and follow him.”
The Galant turned off St. Clair and onto a side street and pulled over. The passenger got out and came up to Raul’s window. I held up seven $20 bills and said, “I got one forty on a gram if you can help me out. I’m kind of desperate right now, you know.”
After saying this I realized I might have fucked up Raul’s percentage. But then I needed to get this done, so fuck it. If Raul wanted a cut he could get it from them. Plus it wasn’t like he didn’t owe me money and it wasn’t like I was ever going to see a dime of that shit.
The passenger said alright. He said to follow. He got back in the Galant and it went on. We followed it around a few streets. Raul’s phone rang. He picked up and said alright; and he turned to me and said, “Pull over. Park here.”
The Galant went up a little farther ahead and stopped. The passenger got out again and walked down the middle of the street with his hands cupped over his mouth. Then a kid came out from around the back of a house and went out into the street to talk to the passenger. They talked and the kid went back and the passenger turned and waved to Raul.
Raul said, “Give me the money.”
He got out of the car and walked up to the Galant and got in the backseat.
“That was so cool,” Emily said. “Did that guy do a little birdcall?”
I agreed it was cool. “These guys don’t fuck around,” I said. “I wish they were our dope boys.”
It wasn’t two minutes and the kid was back with the heroin. He dropped it off in the Galant and went on his way. Raul got out and brought it to us. The Galant drove off. I took the scale out of the armrest and put a card on the scale and zeroed it. I put the heroin on the card.
I said to Emily, “It’s one over.”
“Beautiful,” she said.
“It smells like fire too.”
And we got off. The heroin was good. Very good. Not stepped-all-over like the dope we were accustomed to buying, the dope we were accustomed to selling our souls for.
I said, “Holy fuck.”
It was hitting me hard like it used to.
Emily said, “Hot damn.”
It was hitting her hard too.
I said to Raul, “I don’t suppose you’ll give me these dudes’ number.”
“They told me not to,” he said.
I didn’t believe him, but whatever.
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
It was Raul’s idea to rob the bank at Warrensville and Mayfield. He wanted to put some money up before he went to prison. We were headed to the bank: Raul, Rider, James, and I. I was hoping that with three inside we’d take a lot more money and somebody could mind the doors, which would be a must as we were unarmed. I had asked James if he wanted to drive. I thought it was going to turn out better than it did.
I wasn’t worried about what James would do. I wasn’t worried about Raul either. I was mostly just worried about what Rider would do. Rider didn’t handle pressure well. But he was Raul’s boy and I was hoping Raul’s presence would give him courage.
There were bad signs from the start. We were driving around the bank and checking things out and I wanted to see it from the other side of the street.
“Let’s just do it,” Raul said.
“No,” I said. “Let’s take another look.”
We crossed Mayfield on Warrensville. We were heading south and I could see the parking lot behind the buildings that were across the street from the bank and four police cars parked in the lot. They were all of them facing the same way, ready to roll out.
“Look at that shit,” I said. “You see? We’d have been fucked.”
“What am I doing?” James asked.
I said, “Just keep driving straight.”
We ended up driving over to Belmar and we tried to rally there. James traded Rider an ounce of loud for a few grams of heroin. I took Raul aside.
I said, “What about this shit Rider’s always talking about in Bath? That’s a lot of money.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know. Killing that guy.”
He said, “That’s some bullshit.”
“Figures.”
“That dude out in Bath is a state’s witness.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah. He’s a witness in a case against a nigga Rider owes fourteen racks to.”
“Man, that Rider’s no good.”
“So what’s up?” James asked when we got back to the car. “Are we doing anything or what?”
Rider said he needed to go to Severance. I said I thought we could rob a bank on Chagrin Boulevard. James said that would be fine. Those of us who were junkies shot some heroin. We headed out and dropped Rider off. I was glad to be rid of him. We got to Chagrin and looked at two different banks and decided on the one that was in a shopping center. It was a newer bank, and I was sure that it would have man-trap doors. I said to Raul, “When we’re leaving it’s important that we hold the doors open. If we get caught between the doors going out they’ll lock us in and we’ll go to jail and it will be a terrible thing. So I’m gonna hold the inside door open while you get the door to the outside. Then you hold that one open and we go out together. This is very important.”
“I got you,” he said.
I said to James, “Let us out on the sidewalk. We’ll walk there and you pull into the parking lot without us. That way nobody will notice you till it’s over.”
We drove up and down the street once more so as to have time to smoke a last cigarette. Then James pulled around and let us out at the curb. It was in the mid-40s outside, nowhere near cold enough to warrant all the winter shit that Raul and I were wearing. I had on James’s frock coat and his Shaker High School ski cap and his neck warmer. Raul was wearing a parka and a balaclava that covered his whole face like he was a ninja. We were halfway across the parking lot.
“You good?”
I heard a muffled affirmative.
We got to the door and I had pulled the neck warmer up so it covered the lower half of my face. I went in saying, “ATTICA. ATTICA. ATTICA ATTICA.”
Raul wasn’t saying shit. I looked over my shoulder, looked over the other shoulder. Raul wasn’t there. I looked back at the bank employees. They looked at me. I said not to tell anyone. I turned around and walked out. Raul was in the backseat of the car. James had waited for me.
I said, “Let’s go.”
We got out onto Chagrin.
I said, “Raul, what the fuck are you doing to me? That was fucking embarrassing.”
James said, “Fuck!”
I turned around and saw police cars a little ways off in the oncoming lane.
I said, “Pull over.”
“What?”
“Pull over to the side of the road. Just do it. Raul, lie down.”
James pulled off to the side of the road.
The police came on and they went by.
James said, “Shit.”
I said, “That’s what they always do. But seriously, Raul, what the fuck? How could you do that. That was fucking infamous.”
Raul said he was sorry.
I said, “Forget it. I know another bank we can rob.”
James said, “You want to try this shit again?”
I said I did.
I said, “Raul, do you still want to rob a bank today?”
He said he did.
“Are you sure though?”
He said he was sure.