Dog Day Afternoon (18 page)

The lobby was silent for a long time. Joe slid off the desk and walked to a point halfway between Boyle and Marge, at the desk, and the lobby sign, where Sam was still guarding the two younger women.

“I want you people to listen to some advice,” Littlejoe said then. “The first thing you have to fear is Sam. He kills. The second thing you have to fear is me. I tell Sam who to kill. But the third thing you have to fear is the cops and the FBI. They kill too. At some point we’re gonna march you out there in lockstep to a car or limo or bus. That’s when they’ll draw a bead on Sam and me and try to figure a way to scrag us without getting one of you. Well, there won’t be no way. We’ll be huddled up too close to each other. And that’s your biggest fear of all.”

“They won’t shoot,” Marge, said, stubbing out her unsmoked cigarette.

“Pray you’re right.” Joe leaned back against the counter as if surveying his own feudal holding, complete with serfs. “Pray they don’t pull another Attica, where they just went in and shot everybody, including the guards and even some of themselves. When it was over forty-two people were dead with only cop bullets in them. Get it through your heads, people, your biggest danger is out there.”

15

A
t five o’clock, Littlejoe gave everyone permission to sit down somewhere in the bank where he or Sam could watch them. The only comment he got then was from Boyle, who said: “Think they’ve rounded up the million yet?”

The telephone had been ringing so often that Joe had taken all the phones off their hooks. Now, at a quarter to six, he decided to let the world in again. He had worked out pretty much every angle of the escape, bringing Sam into the planning to keep him distracted from the proximity of people he could shoot. There really wasn’t anything left to chance, Joe told himself. It was an airtight escape.

He replaced the telephone on Boyle’s desk, and it began to ring immediately. He picked it up.

“Got the cash, Moretti?” he asked.

“This is CBS News,” a voice said. “We’d like to interview you. Is this Littlejoe?”

Joe sat down behind Boyle’s desk and put his feet up on it. “Speaking.”

“Well, I guess you could say the world is watching you, Littlejoe. At any rate, it’s listening. I’m taping this now and we’ll play it over on the six-o’clock local news. It may even repeat on the Cronkite show at seven.”

“Big fucking deal.”

“Uh, look, is there . . . I mean, is it possible to watch the language? This is going on the air.”

“Blip me, asshole. We’re on tape, ain’t we?”

“Oh, yeah, of course. Maybe you can tell us, Littlejoe, why you’re doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Robbing a bank.”

Joe shifted uncomfortably. Was this guy for real? Weren’t TV reporters supposed to have a brain? “What do you want?” he asked. “Banks is where they got money. You want to steal, you go where the money is, right?”

“But why do you need to steal? Do you have some sort of compulsion?”

Joe put his hand over the phone. “Sam,” he said, “this creep is not to be believed.” Then, into the phone: “It’s a compulsion to eat, asshole. To buy clothes and have a place to live. That’s why I steal.”

“Couldn’t you find a job?”

“A job doing what? You want to drive a cab, you gotta join a union. Dig ditches? Run a jack-hammer? Name it and they got a fucking union. Bank teller? I been a bank teller at a hundred and five bucks a week to start. What do you make, Mr. Newsman?”

“Well, we’re talking about you, Littlejoe. You’re the one everybody’s interested in.”

“What gave you that idea? You’re talking to me because you’re paid to fill the air with stuff. It’s hot entertainment, right?”

“You’re news, Littlejoe.”

“If you had to pay an entertainer to fill this slot, what would it cost? A Steve Allen? A Pamela Mason? A Jackie Susann? Christ, you’re getting off cheap with me. What do they pay you?”

The man stopped talking for a moment. “You’re not talking,” Joe pointed out. “You’re not doing your job, Mr. Newsman. How much are you paying me to fill up your air time?”

“You want to be paid for . . .”

“Fucking ay right, dumdum. Sam and me are dying in here. We got innocent people in here, and all of us may die. They’re gonna murder us the second they line us up in their sights.” Joe winked at Sam and covered the telephone again. “Get it on the record,” he told Sam. “Warn everybody what the cops plan to do. It gives us a little extra margin of safety, right?”

“Right on, Littlejoe.”

“How is that gonna look on TV?” Joe asked the interviewer. “We got young girls, the mothers of babies. We got a guard with a bad heart. We got Marge, a zoftig number. We got a man with a family who thinks the Chase won’t let him down after fifteen years of loyal slavery. When the cops start chopping us into catfood, how will that look on TV, huh?”

“You could give yourself up.”

“You ever been in prison?”

“No, Littlejoe, I—”

“Then talk about something you fucking well know about.”

“Littlejoe, I know we can blip your words, but it’d get your message across a lot more meaningfully if you’d, uh, moderate your language.”

“You don’t want to hear this shit anyway.”

“We have footage and tape on your talk with Sergeant Moretti. But we’d like a little backup here in which you explain why you’re doing this.”

“Money,” Joe said. “Lots of it.”

“Another thing that’s puzzled a lot of people, Littlejoe, is why you want your wife dragged into this. Are you planning to take her with you on the plane?”

“Yeah. To Stockholm.” Joe was grinning.

“What?”

“Nothing. You think I’d tell you?”

“One of the things that’s delayed matters, as we understand it, Littlejoe, is that the police are having some difficulty locating her.”

Joe glanced up at the clock. It showed five minutes to six
P.M.
“Better hustle your ass if you want to make the news.”

“Can you give CBS News some additional clue that we can pass along to the police to facilitate her—”

“Do kids watch the
Six O’Clock News?”

“I’m not abs—”

“Wee-wee!” Joe called. “Poo-poo! Ca-ca! Up your giggies, kiddies!” He hung up the phone and sat there for a moment, grinning at the tips of his shoes on top of Boyle’s desk. “Hey, Boyle, is there a TV in the bank?”

“In the storeroom,” the manager said wearily. “Three cartons. Leftover premiums from our new-account blitz.”

“Which is Maria?” Joe asked. He looked at a dark-eyed young woman who had said nothing so far. “You?”

“Yes.”

Littlejoe heard a faint Puerto Rican inflection. “Get one of those TVs from the storeroom. Anybody hungry?”

Marge looked up. “Why?”

The telephone rang. “Watch this,” Joe told her. He picked up. “Moretti?”

“It’s about time you answered that phone, Joe.”

“I been busy with CBS News,” Joe bragged. “Listen, I got a hungry crew here. Send in about four jumbo pizzas, okay? Two plain, one with sausage, one with anchovies, right? And a dozen cans of beer. My treat.”

He heard the detective laughing on the other end of the line. “Joe, I guess your hostages are in good shape, right?”

“Just make sure we get the pizzas.”

“It’s a deal. Look, I been turning myself inside out for you. It’s time you did something for me,” Moretti said.

“You got the million in cash?”

“Not yet.”

“Then hang up and order the pizzas.”

“You get the pizzas, Joe. A promise is a promise. I need something from you before I can get any final action out of my higher-ups. You can understand what I mean when I tell you they don’t trust you. Your word isn’t good enough for them.
I
believe you.
I
stand by your word. That don’t cut any ice with my bosses or the FBI. They’re reluctant to go through with ransom, safe conduct, plane, unless they get some kind of evidence of good faith on your part.”

“Good what?”

“Faith,” Moretti repeated. “I got faith in you. They need something more than my faith. They need evidence.”

“Like what?”

“Like . . . oh, let’s say . . . like releasing your hostages.”

“Kiss, kiss,” Littlejoe cooed. “Fuck, fuck.”

“I keep telling you, Joe, I don’t need evidence. They need it.”

“They must think I’m an idiot. My hostages are all that keep the pig from slaughtering us.”

“Don’t use that word.”

“Pig? You don’t like pig?”

“Listen, Joe, you and I are the ones who have to understand each other,” Moretti warned him. “You have to give me my respect as a man. You can’t do it when you use words like that. Understand? You give me my respect and I give you yours. Otherwise, fuck the whole deal.”

“Okay, okay.” Joe pulled his feet off the desk. “A touchy cop, Jesus. But the answer’s still no. I give up hostages, I commit suicide.”

He watched Maria lugging a corrugated cardboard carton into the lobby. “Here,” he said. “Open it up.”

“What?” Moretti asked.

“Nothing. No deal. No hostages.”

“They won’t move without I show them you’re sincere, Joe. I have to show them you can be trusted.”

“No hostages.”

“One hostage,” Moretti begged.

“No.”

“One. You’ll still have four, right? Four is more than enough, Joe. All you need is one, really, to keep with you out to the airport.”

“No.”

“Just give me one hostage now. I promise I’ll have the wheels spinning and the ransom here in an hour.”

“Kiss, kiss. If you didn’t collect the cash yet, it’s too fucking late now,” Littlejoe said. Boyle joined Maria in unpacking the tiny Japanese black-and-white television set. He plugged it in and pulled out the single collapsible antenna. “Channel Two,” Joe said.

“Not two,” Moretti begged, “just one. Give me one. Don’t worry about the cash. The FBI has cash reserves just for this purpose. We’ll have the million for you. But you have to show you can be trusted.”

“Shee-it. Hold the phone.” Joe put the instrument down on the desk. “Sam,” he said, “they say they’ll speed everything up if we show we’re in good faith. They want one hostage. We’ll still have enough to protect us.”

“Which one?”

Littlejoe looked at Boyle. “I’ll show you who’s in good fucking faith, Boyle. You bank people choose. Pick one.”

Both Boyle and Marge turned to look at each other. Then they both looked at Leroy, the guard, who had barely stirred in the past hour from the armchair in which he’d been put. Boyle glanced over at the other bank people. “How about Leroy? His heart . . .”

“Yeah, Leroy,” Maria agreed.

Ellen’s face remained stiff. “I . . . guess so.”

“Leroy,” Boyle called. “You want it to be Ellen? She has a small baby.”

The guard’s eyes fluttered. “Whatever,” he mumbled. “Whatever.”

“Ellen’s out,” Joe announced. “Ellen’s my ace in the hole. Forget Ellen. Give ’em Leroy, then?”

Everyone nodded. Joe went over to the guard and lifted him to his feet.

“This is your lucky fucking day, Leroy. Come on.”

“S-slow an’ easy,” the guard muttered. “My chest hurt
bad.”

“No problems, Leroy. If it was your heart you’d be dead by now. It’s gas. One good fart’ll clear it up.” He escorted the guard to the door. “Wait there.” He went back to the phone. “Okay, Moretti, you get the dinge. He says his heart’s bad so the bank people voted to let him go. Isn’t that democratic, Moretti? More’n they’d do for a guinea, right?”

“Send him outside.”

“In front of the door, Moretti. This is proof I’m in good faith. Make sure your people keep the faith, too.”

He hung up and returned to a position just behind Leroy. “Don’t be nervous now, Leroy. The old ticker is strong enough for this. The cops will take you to the hospital and it’ll be fine, and Chase might even give you a twenty-five-buck bonus.”

“For what?”

“How should I know?” Joe unlocked the door. “Okay, Leroy, move them feet.” He swung the door open and, planting his hand in between Leroy’s shoulders, gave a shove.

The guard, slightly off balance, and weak-kneed to begin with, tottered forward into the hot sun. The street erupted with confusion. Joe saw dozens of guns trained on Leroy: submachine guns, shotguns, rifles, riot guns, revolvers, automatics. He saw Moretti explode out the front door of the insurance office.

“Don’t fire!” Moretti yelled.
“Hold your fire!”

Littlejoe very distinctly heard a cop nearby ask: “Did he say fire?” From across the street another cop said: “When do we fire?”

“Hold . . . your . . . fire!”
Moretti screamed at the top of his voice.

Tugging his straw hat more firmly down over his forehead, he started across the hot black asphalt for Leroy, who had fallen to his knees on the sidewalk in front of the bank.

Joe watched a young cop with longish hair and a moustache run squatted down, like a Western gunfighter, to get a closer aim at Leroy. He held the gun in both hands and trained it directly on Leroy’s face from twenty feet away.

“Don’t shoot,” Moretti shouted. “Get the hell out of the way.”

The young cop swiveled and aimed the gun at Moretti, then realized what he had done and swung it back on Leroy.