Chapter 21. Alice
ALICE
Alice listened to the chug of gas entering the RV, willing it to hurry up.
The attendant, a wiry middle-aged man, with straggly hair and overgrown sideburns, dipped his squeegee into a bucket and dragged it across the windshield, removing dust and dead bugs.
He scrubbed hard at the splattered remains of a particularly large bug that had dried in the corner near Simon.
She glanced sideways. Simon was leaning back in his seat, the brim of his baseball cap pulled down to shade his eyes, as though he was sleeping, but she could see his tight jaw, his fingers tapping.
Finally, the attendant moved away from their windshield and the RV tanks were full. Alice handed over cash, relieved when the man gave a quick nod and went to help the next car.
The Dairy Queen didn’t close until eleven and Simon didn’t want to go back to the nature park, so they found a dusty road that might have been used for logging in the past but was now rough with potholes.
Overgrown shrubs and branches brushed against the RV as it bumped and dipped for a couple of miles until they reached a clearing where Simon told her to park.
Then he revealed his plan to rob the restaurant at closing time.
Tom tried to talk Simon out of it. “A Dairy Queen isn’t going to have much money in the till. It’s not worth the risk.”
“All money is good money.”
“Is it worth dying for?”
“You think I can’t handle myself? I beat your ass, didn’t I?”
Tom’s hands clenched into fists, like he was thinking about how much he wanted to wipe that smirk off Simon’s face right now. Alice sure did.
Tom tried another approach. “Just leave Alice. You don’t need her.”
“What I don’t need is you shooting your mouth off.” Simon tugged the gun out of his waistband and lifted his eyebrows at Tom. “You going to be quiet now?”
“Yes, he is,” Alice said. “And I need to get some rest.” She walked to the back and crawled onto the bed with Tom. Simon sat with Jenny at the table and played Uno.
Alice fell asleep and dreamed of messy burgers, with bits of lettuce and cheese dropping onto the RV carpet.
She tried to clean it up, but more food kept falling.
Then there was a baby crying somewhere in the RV, and she was searching under the seats, in the cupboards.
She woke up to Tom softly calling her name and barely had a moment to adjust when Simon got to his feet.
“It’s time. Let’s go.”
Alice stumbled off the bed, grabbed a soda from the fridge, rubbed at her eyes to clear the dreams and sleep, and got behind the wheel.
When they reached town, they parked again at the laundromat.
This time behind it. Simon’s theory was that if anyone saw the RV, they’d think they were doing laundry—which Alice would have liked.
The RV windows were rolled down, but the air was still steamy.
The brick building, having absorbed the heat all day, was now radiating it out at them.
Alice futilely fanned her face with one of their travel brochures.
“They’re just kids,” she said to Simon, who was in the passenger’s seat, waiting for the last cars to leave Dairy Queen.
They couldn’t see the front, but they had a clear view of the parking lot and the back door to the alley, where a few minutes ago one of the workers had come out with a garbage bag that he’d tossed into a dumpster.
Alice didn’t want to rob anything, but especially not a restaurant where teenagers worked, no matter how much Simon hated them.
“Even better,” he said. “They’ll piss their pants.”
“With two people working, there are more chances of a problem.”
Simon gave her a look, then got up and made his way down the center of the RV. Alice turned in her seat and watched as he reached into the storage where he’d put the disguises. He rummaged through one of the pillowcases, then brandished a roll of silver duct tape.
“I kept this.”
Alice slumped in her seat. Maybe the Dairy Queen had an alarm. Simon sat back down in the passenger’s seat. When the parking lot was empty of all cars, and it was one minute until closing time, he said, “We’ll try the back door first. It’s probably unlocked.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Jenny pleaded. “It was just a mistake.”
“The dumbass was rude to me. That was a big mistake.”
Alice observed over her shoulder as Simon pulled out their disguises from the storage and gave the hunting knife to Jenny. “Anything goes wrong, get behind the wheel, and just go.”
Jenny nodded, but she looked even more scared than Alice felt.
She imagined Jenny frozen in the driver’s seat, watching Alice and Simon being hauled away in handcuffs.
Or worse, on stretchers. Alice didn’t think Dairy Queen employees would be armed, but the police sure would be, and if they saw her with the fake gun that Simon was now passing her, they might just decide she was a real threat.
Her sweaty palm stuck to the plastic handle.
“Same as last time,” he said. “Flash it at them so they know we’re serious.”
“I think they’ll know.”
Simon tossed the denim overalls at her. “Hurry up.”
After they were dressed in their disguises and gloves, Alice followed him down the RV steps, and into the shadows alongside the building, then around the dumpster.
“I’ll go in first. Stay right behind me.”
When they entered through the back door, Alice was hit with the strong scent of lemon cleaner.
Simon gestured to the floor. Wet tiles. She nodded and followed him through the kitchen, past metal shelves and ice-cream machines.
She peered through the equipment, searching for the workers.
Voices, up front. Arguing about who had to clean the grill.
Simon was moving faster now, rounding the counter, the gun straight out in front of him, and both hands gripping it like he was in a police movie.
“Put your hands up!”
The action was so abrupt and shocking that the two workers behind the front counter, holding spray bottles and rags, just stood staring at them with their mouths open.
“I said, put your goddamn hands up!”
The boys dropped the cleaning tools onto the counter. One of the bottles rolled off and clattered onto the floor. They lifted their arms into the air.
Simon was standing in the throughway between the counter and the kitchen, blocking the boys in beside the ice-cream machines. Alice was at his shoulder. He jerked his chin at her.
“Lock the front door, then get back here.”
Alice hurried to the door, contemplated running straight out, then glanced back at Simon, who was watching her. Could she make it out before he shot her? Simon narrowed his eyes, and shifted his body slightly in her direction, one foot back like he was getting ready to run.
Alice flipped the dead bolt and returned to Simon.
“Anyone else in here?” he said to the boys, who were standing side by side and had shuffled backward, so they were a few feet away.
The shorter one had brown hair that winged out from underneath his white Dairy Queen paper hat and his cheeks were marked with acne.
His red uniform shirt with plaid trim hung off his skinny frame.
He couldn’t have been a day over sixteen.
The other one looked a little older and husky, with a thick middle and stocky legs. His blond hair was long under his uniform hat, falling straight over his ears, and something about the way he was staring at Simon made Alice think he was the kind who might try to resist.
“Turn around and get on your stomach with your arms behind your backs.”
They both spun around, but the blond one moved slower, with a you-don’t-scare-me attitude, as he lowered himself. They flattened their bodies on the floor and stuck their arms out.
Simon looked at Alice, who was behind his right shoulder.
“Tape them up.”
She pulled the tape out of the front pocket of her overalls and hurried over to the boys.
She crouched near the small one, his wrists thin, and his shoulder blades jutting out from a narrow back.
His uniform pants were baggy, the loops scrunched together by a belt.
His Dairy Queen hat had fallen off. The back of his hair waved into curls at the base of his neck.
“Don’t look at us,” Simon yelled, and both kids kept their heads turned away.
Alice fumbled with the end of the tape, struggling to peel it back while wearing the knitted gloves.
She could feel Simon’s mounting agitation behind her, the squeaking of his shoes pacing on the clean tiles.
Finally, she had the tape end, which she wound around each boy’s wrists tight enough to hold them but hopefully not cut off their circulation.
They were so close to Alice that if they had turned their heads, even for a second, they could have seen her face, her eyes, but they stayed frozen. The smaller one had started crying and whimpering, then begging. “Please don’t hurt us. Please, I don’t want to die.”
“Jesus Christ. Tape that kid’s mouth shut.”
Alice ignored the order and muttered to the boy, “Stop crying.” He tried to rein in the sobs, but he was doing a poor job.
“Tape him!” Simon shouted again.
“We need him to tell us where the money is.” She couldn’t put tape across their mouths. She couldn’t hurt them. She wouldn’t. She got to her feet.
Simon flipped the light switch, and they were plunged into darkness, except for a dim emergency lighting in the kitchen. He came around the back side of the counter and yanked a phone out of the wall, dropping it with a clatter.
“How do I open the register?” he said.
The kid who wasn’t crying said, “The red button at the top.”
“Get the money,” Simon told Alice, who pressed the button and began pulling money out of the register. On the floor, the kids were a blob of dark shadows and weeping sounds.
“Where’s the safe?” Simon demanded.
“In the office.” Again the braver kid spoke. “But we don’t have the code.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Our boss is the only one.”