Steph stayed in the car while the rest of us went inside the bank. She was to remain counting how many people went in and out in the time it would take us to return. We entered under the guise of a family opening a checking account, three hundred dollars in twenties stuffed in an envelope, using the last bit of cash we had before the robberies just in case. Jenny wasn’t allowed to bring Seymour, since it would make us memorable. We wanted to be as unmemorable as possible. I was tasked to hold her sweaty hand.
The bank was bigger than our last job. Four tellers, separated by glass windows. Three partitioned cubicles to the right with advisers at their computers. A security guard, sitting on a fold-out chair at the door, overweight and looking bored. He had a gun in his belt loop, almost hidden by a belly that lopped over his waist. About a dozen customers, half of them in line, a few sitting down with advisers. The advisers, all men with yarmulkes. A hallway past the cubicles led to the managers’ offices.
We signed our fake names and waited to be called. Next to us sat an Orthodox man in a very heavy overcoat. He had a long gray beard that held crumbs from his last meal. Dandruff spilled from under his black hat. He winced every time he shifted in place. He eyed us through his thick glasses. We definitely stood out. Barry and I not wearing yarmulkes, Jenny in shorts, Mom showing off her bare arms. You could tell he wasn’t pleased. He got called before us, and his knees cracked as he stood. In his hand, a crumpled check.
“He smells like pudding,” Jenny said, louder than she should have. If he heard her, he chose to ignore it.
“The security guard doesn’t seem like a problem at all,” Barry said quietly out of the corner of his mouth. “Doughy and listless.”
“Hmmm,” Mom said, as if she had checked out completely.
“Four tellers,” he said his eyes shifting to each one. “We make them empty their registers, and then it’s crucial they come out from behind the glass. Each of them has a button under the counter that spells out our doom.”
“What about the yarmulkes working at the cubicles?” I asked.
“First, Judith, you’ll disarm the guard,” Barry said. “Make him lie down on the floor. Once that porker goes down, he’ll have a hard time getting back up. I’ll go for the tellers. Aaron, you get the yarmulkes to come out of their cubicles.”
“What about me?” Jenny asked.
“There’s the managers to think about, too.” He peered down the darkness of the hallway. “Hard to say how many other offices. I’m guessing two, maximum. No way there’s more than two.”
Jenny looked up with pleading eyes, waiting for her defined role.
“Once I corral the tellers, Jenny, you could monitor them while I go after the managers.”
“What if one of the managers rings the alarm in the meantime?” I asked.
Barry rubbed the burgeoning stubble on his chin.
“A pickle certainly. We could really use another member of the Gimmelman gang.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” I said, enjoying our telepathy.
“Right? Someone to go after the managers and bring them out front. Especially since the safe is what we really care about.”
He turned to me, pupils going wide behind his glasses.
“Aaron, what if you bring the managers out with your fake gun?”
Mom swallowed hard. I could see the veins in her neck strain.
“What is it, Judith?” Barry asked.
“What if one of the managers thinks it’s a real gun?”
“No one would shoot a child.”
“You heard those people from the last bank on the news. They thought Aaron and Jenny were little people,” Mom said.
“Okay, I’ll go after the manager. Judith, you disarm the security guard. Aaron, you take care of the tellers, and Judith, you take care of the yarmulkes.”
“What about me?” Jenny asked, raising her voice. We’d been whispering the whole time, but Jenny caused some Orthodox heads to swivel over.
Barry leaned in close to her. “Okay, Jenny, you can take care of the men in the cubicles. Direct them out of their offices, tell them to lie on the floor with their hands behind their backs.”
“Gimmelmans?” we heard. It caused a pinch in my gut. Like we were exposed.
It had been one of the advisers in the cubicles. I followed Barry and Mom with my head down like I’d already done something wrong. When we entered his office, there were only three chairs surrounding his desk.
“I can get you another,” the guy said, but Mom just sat down and placed Jenny on her lap.
“What can I do for you?” he asked. He wasn’t too old but had already gone bald, only a few wisps of hair under the yarmulke.
“We’re staying with my mother-in-law,” Barry said, taking charge as usual. “I wanted to open an account while we’re here.”
Barry slid the envelope with three hundred dollars across the table.
“How safe is this bank?” Barry asked as the pinch in my gut grew sharper.
“Come again?”
“The area…vagrants?” Barry continued.
“Your money is entirely safe here. I can assure you.”
I tuned them out. The adviser got the paperwork ready for Barry and Mom to sign. I spent the time counting video cameras. There was one by the entrance, one by the teller windows, and another pointing toward the cubicles, looking directly at me. I couldn’t remember which movie, but I had seen one where the robbers sprayed the cameras with spray paint in a bank heist. I knew Barry would appreciate that intel. After I finished traveling off into space, the papers had been filled out, and Mom was lifting Jenny off her lap and getting ready to leave.
“Thank you for your time,” Barry said, shaking the man’s hand. He tapped me on the shoulder as a signal to go. Jenny scooted to the front, but I felt dizzy as we passed the security guard. He gummed his lip, scrutinizing me with tiny, beady eyes. I nearly took a dump in my shorts as I flew out the doors into the hot Florida sun.
Back in the car, Barry was going over the lay of the bank with Steph, but Mom was super quiet.
“I want to go to temple,” she finally said once we started driving.
“What?” Barry asked.
“Tonight, for Friday night services with Nana,” she said.
“Have at it,” Barry said.
“All of us,” she continued, more forceful than I’d seen her be thus far. “We need to talk to God about what we’re doing. I need a sign to know that it’s okay.”
“What kind of sign do you expect?” Barry asked.
She didn’t respond. Was there really an answer? Did she need to go through these motions so she could talk herself into what we were doing? Or was she more concerned that even if Hashem gave her a warning sign, our barreling train had long left the station, and there was no chance of pulling the brake?