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------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- “May I help you?” ------- The young woman was so cheerful that Morris had to smile. Nice hair. She’d done her best to make herself attractive. He handed her the checks and deposit slip. -------“Pretty pin,” he said. -------“Why thank you, sir.” Her fingers brushed the little silver fox on her lapel. She’d verified the total and was about to process the checks when she gasped and turned pale. ------- “Yes sir,” she said in a quavering voice and began placing piles of cash on the counter. ------- “What are you doing, miss?” Morris asked. ------- “What?” The woman seemed confused. “Aren’t you a bank robber?” ------- Morris glanced around the room in alarm. No one seemed to be looking their way. ------- The girl held up the deposit slip. On the back was lightly penciled, THIS IS A STICKUP. -------“Oh no, miss,” Morris said. “That must have been on the slip. It’s someone’s joke.” ------- “I called the police. We have a button.” -------“Call them back.” ------- “I can’t,” the woman said. ------- Morris said, trying to stay calm. “All right, I’ll wait until they come. Go on, miss, help the next customer.” Morris reached over the counter. He took back the checks and the deposit slip and sat in the Customer Service Area. -------The white-faced teller looked around wildly, but a man was already at the counter. He was in a hurry. ------- The woman at the service desk asked Morris if he needed help. ------- “No thanks,” Morris replied, without turning his head. You weren’t supposed to wear a hat in the bank, so he took his off. Now an older woman was talking to the teller. Both women looked around the bank. Morris was about to get up and walk over to them when the police burst through the door. -------“Don’t anyone move!” a policeman shouted. The teller gave a sigh and fainted. ------- Everyone moved. The police looked around nervously. There was muffled conversation, and Morris heard someone phone for an ambulance. It would be impossible to explain what happened without the teller to back him up. ------- “There’s been a robbery,” a policeman announced. “If any of you saw what happened, we want to talk with you.” ------- Morris waited, watching the stock quotes crawl across the bottom of the TV. The market was rebounding from Monday’s low. He admired the watercolors on the bank’s walls. Customers milled. When he saw a man shake hands with a policeman and start for the door, Morris stood and walked out with him. -------“A bad business,” Morris said. -------He was stopped in the parking lot by someone he knew. The police radios squawked in the background. -------“What’s going on?” -------“Attempted robbery,” Morris said. “I didn’t see anything.” -------“They’ll have it all on the tape.” -------Jesus! Morris thought. Of course they would. He excused himself and headed back towards the bank, but a policeman blocked his way. “Sorry, sir. You can’t go in there now. There’s been an incident.” -------Morris drove home and packed. He ate supper, but for once he wasn’t hungry. He stared at the TV for hours and finally fell asleep in his chair. -------The morning paper covered the robbery in detail. The robber had been turned away by the courageous actions of Miss Terry Stevens. Stevens, recently hired, had been slightly injured when she fainted. The manager expressed regret that she’d decided to give up her job at the bank. A picture of the robber taken from the surveillance tape was dim and grainy. The hat blocked half the face. It could be anyone. Stevens’s description of the robber was inaccurate, and a police sketch looked barely human. ------- ------- The following week an actual robbery took place at a nearby bank. The masked robber escaped with considerable cash, and a guard was injured. A few days later the assistant manager of a third bank was shot and killed during an early morning theft. ------- Morris hoped the man would be caught quickly, but despite the efforts of the police and the FBI there were no arrests. There were no more robberies. Everyone was relieved except Morris. They’d never stop looking for a killer. He was sure the teller could recognize him, and the police would find his identity was false. His picture would be in the paper. If he were anywhere else, he’d move on, but he liked the Cape. It was peaceful, and the woods and beaches were lovely. It was a place to die for. ------- ------- A month after the robberies, weeks of worry and lying low, Morris slipped a 25 caliber automatic into his coat pocket and drove to a local drug store. He parked in the unlighted lot and walked three blocks to a candy shop. -------It was just before closing. Morris looked past the display of chocolate bunnies and heart-shaped candy boxes in the window. There were no customers and no one was on the sidewalk. He took a deep breath and opened the door. The young woman at the counter glanced up with a smile that quickly faded. ------- “I know you,” she said. “You’re the man with the note, the one who wasn’t a bank robber.” She tried to laugh. “I guess I won’t call the police this time.” -------“I hope not,” Morris said. “Why didn’t you tell them it was a mistake?” -------“I tried to, but they said I’d scared you away. I finally let them give me the credit, and then I had to make up a phony description. When the real robberies happened, and the shootings, I was stuck. I figured you didn’t do them?” -------“No,” Morris said. -------They looked at each other. -------So, what’ll it be, sir?” -------“Terry, right?” He nodded at her name tag. -------“That’s right,” she said. ------- “I think, Terry,” Morris said, “I’d like a box of chocolate cherries.” ------- He paid her and took his change from a twenty. -------“Thank you,” he said. “They’re for you.” ------- ------- ------- |