There are bad dogs and there are mad dogs. Nickel Terhune learned the difference on the farm of his youth and was refreshed on the concept years later on a lovely spring day in Lima, Ohio.
Heat haze on the highway, warm west wind, the kind of day that called memories to mind, first loves and stolen kisses, a girl named Savannah Cody. The first time he’d seen her was more than a decade ago on a day like this; the last time was mere weeks ago, at her mother’s funeral, which Nickel was forced to observe from a distance, being by then one of the most-wanted fugitives in America.
Things changed fast in the land of what could have been and almost was. There was a version of life in which he might’ve still been called Eddie, might’ve been driving a legally purchased car with Savannah at his side and their son, Alford, in the back seat. Instead, he was known as Nickel and driving a stolen Studebaker with two gangsters for passengers, headed back to rob the same jewelry store for the second time in two weeks.
The return to Lima was foolish, and he knew it, and so did James Dalhover, though Dalhover didn’t much care, because it had been nearly a week since he’d last held a gun on anyone, and the man got off on terror in a way Nickel had never known. It was Al Brady who made the call for all of them—Brady always did—and for him the latest visit to the Kay Jewelry store in Lima was a matter of pride. The last time through, he’d gotten nearly seven thousand dollars’ worth of jewels, but he’d also been shot at by a member of his own gang, and the papers had a hell of a time with that.
Al Brady was unamused.
They’d been holed up in a boardinghouse in Wheeling, West Virginia, when he read the account aloud, his eyes bright with whiskey and rage.
A heroic employee of the jewelry store, Bernard Brender, engaged the notorious Al Brady directly, leaping bravely into action, unafraid of the man’s weapon or those of his evil acquaintances. One of the other gangsters opened fire, shooting wildly, shattering glass cases. Brady, rising from behind the counter, nearly bit a bullet fired by one of his own goons.
“Stop that, you idiot,” the gangster cried. “It’s me.”
“Me who?” the other bandit replied.
“Me-me, you crazy fool!” Brady bellowed.
Although the gang escaped, Brender’s heroics and the criminals’ comedic incompetence caused them to leave the most valuable of the jewels.
Brady lowered the paper, glowering at the other men as if to ensure that they were properly offended. There were only the three of them by then, as the gunman who’d taken the wild shots, Jimmy Cummings, had been pistol-whipped and left on the road.
“Can you believe that bullshit?” Brady snarled. “I mean, can you fucking believe it?”
Nickel allowed that he certainly could not, although he was privately impressed with how much the newspaper reporter had gotten right. An employee had indeed wrestled with Al Brady, and Jimmy Cummings had indeed opened fire, and most of his bullets had gone toward his boss. Even the dialogue exchange was close to accurate, the exception being the language. Al Brady had bellowed plenty of things, but nothing as sanitized as “You crazy fool!”
Still, you had to sell newspapers to churchgoers, so one had to anticipate some creative license when it came to quoting Al Brady. The story sounded funny because, up to a point, it had been funny. Hell, Jimmy had damn near shot off his own boss’s head. Who couldn’t laugh at that?
Al Brady.
That was the trouble.
That was why they were back in Lima, car windows cracked, warm spring air blowing in like hell’s breath on Nickel’s neck.
“By the time we’re done,” Al Brady said, “we’re gonna make Dillinger look like a fuckin’ piker.”
He spent a lot of time comparing his work and reputation to John Dillinger’s and loved to point out that for all the attention his fellow Hoosier commanded, he’d died with three dollars in his pocket, gunned down in a Chicago street. How it was supposed to end differently for any of them, Nickel didn’t know. The number of dollars in the pocket, maybe.
Anyhow, Dillinger was dead, and they weren’t.
Fuckin’ piker.
Nickel saw the jewelry store waiting just up the street. He parked. They popped the doors, climbed out of the car and into the windy midwestern Wednesday. It was too warm for overcoats, but the jackets hid the guns. Nickel followed Brady and Dalhover up the street. A Black man with a broom was working out in back of a dime store; a woman on her knees pulled weeds from a flower bed. The sidewalk was empty.
“Hard and fast and make ’em remember we were here,” Brady instructed.
They turned right, went up four wide stone steps, and entered the jewelry store.
The salesclerk was the same woman who’d been there the last time, and when her scream roused the jeweler from the back room, he hardly seemed startled, only dismayed—This again? He had his keys in his hand almost before they said a word.
“You must be one dumb son of a bitch,” Al Brady told him, “to think I’d trust any stone in that front case.”
Nickel, Al, and the jeweler went into the back room while Dalhover kept his weapon on the employees and customers in the front. Nickel put his gun in the jeweler’s back as the man turned the tumblers with trembling fingers. Jewels were inside the safe, yes, but not many. Probably because they hadn’t had time to restock the inventory. The ink had hardly dried on the last insurance claim. There had been better eras to be a jeweler in the Midwest.
“Where’s the rest of it?” Brady demanded.
“That’s all there is!” the little man said, thinning strands of hair shining with sweat and pomade.
“Bullshit!”
“You already stole the rest!”
Fair point, Nickel thought.
Out in the front room, Dalhover was breaking glass just because he liked to hear it shatter. The sound pleased him, always had. Nickel holstered his gun, raised the pillowcase he’d brought in, and swept the jewels into it. Not much weight to the pillowcase when the safe was empty. Almost like this had been a bad idea.
Still, he was calm enough. Adrenalized, sure; it was hard not to feel some juice when you had the glass breaking and the women screaming and the weight of the pistol heavy in your belt, but he was far from panicked. That was what practice did for you.
“No, no, no, please, no!” a woman wailed out front, and Dalhover answered, harsh, telling her to shut up or eat lead. He liked to talk the way folks claimed Dillinger had, but it never rang true to Nickel, sounded like a comic book. He had jailed with Dillinger and Homer Van Meter and Jack Hamilton and the rest of that poor, dead bunch, and he’d never heard any of them talk about eating lead.
“That’s all of it,” Nickel told Brady, swinging the safe’s door shut, clang. “Let’s go.”
But Al Brady had returned to Lima to make a point, and so he made it with the butt of his gun, battering the jeweler’s balding scalp once, twice, three times, until the man was down and bleeding and silent.
Bad dogs and mad dogs.
Different.
They made it back to the front room. The sidewalk waited in the sun, blissfully empty, no sound of sirens, escape there for the taking, but still Al wasn’t satisfied, needed to join Dalhover in smashing some glass, kicking a floor-length mirror over and stomping it, all with a disturbing blend of fury and indifference, a fighter punching without purpose.
“Let’s go,” Nickel said again. They were a man down because Al Brady had been so offended by the newspaper accounts that he hadn’t waited to replace Jimmy before they robbed the store again. That left only three, which meant no wheelman. They’d have to run for the Studebaker—only a block, but still a run.
“We’ll see you again soon,” Dalhover told the trembling brunette clerk who lay on the floor with her arms over her head.
She slid away from him on the floor, a shard of glass opening up a crimson line on her leg just below the hem of her yellow dress. Her eyes were on Nickel. He turned, pushed the door open, and stepped outside. Saw the police car.
Shit.
He slammed back against the wall, trying to clear out of the firing line, knowing he was too late.
No shots came.
No sound.
He leaned forward. The police car wasn’t flashing lights or blaring sirens, wasn’t moving, was just parked there, which was almost comical, considering the circumstances. There was one cop behind the wheel, head down, like he was lighting a smoke maybe, sitting there between the robbers and their ride, oblivious.
Brady came out of the store, saw Nickel’s lifted index finger, and looked down the street at the police car. He raised his gun quickly, then lowered it.
“He’s not even paying attention,” Brady said.
“No.”
Now Dalhover was outside too, pulling the door shut behind them, sealing the soft sobs of the women inside. A discarded newspaper skittered down the sidewalk, riding the western wind. The only sound. It was blown into the shadows and then out of sight.
“Walk by,” Brady said. “Just walk on by.”
It was running time, not walking time, Nickel’s body wanting speed while his brain demanded calm, but he stayed steady as they started down the street. The pillowcase with the jewels thumped against his thigh. It seemed impossible that no one was screaming. The folks in the jewelry store were still hiding; the rest of the town was unaware. The cop looked up, a fresh cigarette pinched between his lips, just as Nickel had suspected. His eyes drifted to them, still indifferent.
Which means we just keep walking, Nickel thought even as Al Brady stepped into the street and lifted his gun.
“Get out of the fuckin’ car!” Brady bellowed. His gun was leveled at the wide-eyed cop’s head, nothing separating them, not even glass, because the cop had the window down. Twenty paces away, the Studebaker waited.
Should be two cops in that car, Nickel thought. He’s parked with the engine running because he’s waiting on someone.
A part of his brain felt validated when the first shot came from the door of the five-and-dime beside the car. Everyone else seemed to think the bullet came from Al Brady—including maybe Al himself. Nickel knew it was from the missing partner, though, so he was moving for the Studebaker when the second shot came, the bullet spanking off the police car’s roof like a struck match. The officer’s partner was coming out of the dime store firing high and wide.
Brady answered with a blast that missed and blew out a panel of the dime store’s front window, and then Dalhover was shooting too, and Nickel was running, had the Studebaker in sight when his leg jittered sideways and he fell and rolled across the pavement, ripping the shoulder seam of his jacket.
Tripped, he thought, because the pain seemed to come more from his bruised shoulder than anyplace else. It wasn’t until he tried to rise that he felt the bullet wound. Low on the calf, hot blood, scarlet streaks on the street. The one from the car had shot Nickel. He’d gotten out and drawn his gun and fired from his knees. Brady kicked the cop to the ground but didn’t shoot him; instead, he raced for the Studebaker, and as he passed Nickel, he said, “Run!”
Running was all that Nickel had wanted to do back when it was a thing he could do. Now he limped, geysering blood with each step, and wouldn’t have made it to the car if Dalhover hadn’t caught him. Dalhover got the doors open and dumped Nickel into the back seat.
The only thing between them and escape was a driver, but Al Brady ignored the wheel and went for the trunk.
A moment later, the machine gun chattered.
Screams were all around now, everything in the once still, silent afternoon coming alive to either shout or shoot. Al Brady swept the street right to left and then back, bullets fired without targets, but even heedless bullets did their jobs well when there were enough of them.
The cops stayed down. That was what the big gun could do for you. Horsepower. The Thompson machine gun was the John Deere of crime.
“Let’s move!” Dalhover said, clambering behind the wheel. Brady got in beside him, and Nickel curled up on the floor in the back, holding the pillowcase to his leg, the weight of the jewels resting on the wound like ice cubes. Dalhover turned the engine over and pulled a hard U-turn, and Brady put the window down, hoisted himself up, and sprayed another remember-me round at the heart of Lima, Ohio.
They were on the highway before the sirens came.
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