20

It wasn’t a major bank branch. Not a national chain. Better to stay off the big boys’ books and go local. This place catered mostly to the immigrant population, so they were used to money going in and out of state and across borders down to Mexico. Lars’s monthly wire transfers didn’t stand out.

There was a chance he held the distinction as the bank’s largest depositor, but that didn’t raise any red flags. Someone had to be. They survived like most banks, especially in a down market: don’t ask questions as long as he pays the transfer fee, processing fee, handling fee and out-of-state fee.

The street bustled as people walked quickly between air-conditioned buildings and veered close to misters spraying cool water at the edge of a coffee shop patio. Even this early in the morning the heat seemed to come up from the ground as much as from the sun above, rising in a thick gum that had been lying dormant underground all night. The desert worked like that. Snakes curled up for hibernation each time the sun went down, but once the blinding light returned to the landscape it got dangerous all over again.

Shaine had been raised in the desert. She showed the casual indifference of a local to the blazing temperature.

Lars’s back shifted under his shirt, clammy and moist from the sun and the stress. If the teller told him his accounts had been frozen he would have a decision to make: walk away and leave it behind or take what was rightfully his by force.

“Okay, you want to go shopping or something while I take care of this?”

Yes, she kind of liked this old guy.

“Sure. Drop me at the mall.”

“Well, that’s a little far. There’s a shopping center up ahead about a mile. I’ll drop you there and pick you up in a little bit.”

“That place is so ghetto.”

“Well, it’s that or wait in the car.” She sat still, waiting him out. “Like a dog.”

“Fine.”

Shopping was shopping, even if the store selection was not quite Rodeo Drive.

* * *

Lars bumped the SUV over broken speed bumps in the shopping center parking lot, and looking at it again, even he thought the place was a little ghetto. The stores all flashed neon signs of names he didn’t recognize, most offering factory closeouts or slightly damaged merchandise. The storefronts were tagged with graffiti, and the rent-a-cop at the entrance looked like he needed to be sandblasted as badly as the building itself.

“I shouldn’t be too long if everything goes okay,” he said as she climbed down onto the curb. A big if.

Every other shopper there was Hispanic. They turned to look at the white girl like she’d been dropped off naked.

Shaine’s head dropped in her patented don’t-look-at-me walk, usually reserved for high school hallways.

“Oh, wait. Here.” Lars handed over a hundred dollars cash. She took it but kept it hidden, convinced if the other patrons saw the wad of cash, she’d be mugged and left for dead in minutes.

He wanted to park close to the bank so once he was done he could get back in the car and go, especially if something went wrong. He resisted and parked down the street half a block away, out of sight in an alley between two buildings.

He joined the flow of sidewalk traffic, another mild-mannered citizen making a withdrawal. A $180,000 withdrawal but still . . .