Suicide Hill by James Ellroy Page A

and looked up at the robber. “F-fast, please.”
    Rice pointed toward the teller area, then stepped back and let Hawley lead the way. When the manager’s back was turned, he opened his briefcase and took out a pint bottle of bourbon and stuck it into his right front pants pocket. Hawley stepped over a low wooden partition and began unlocking and sliding open drawers. Rice glanced down and saw rows of folding green, then looked closer and saw that it was off-green —fancy traveler’s checks done up in a Wild West motif. “The cash,” he hissed. “Where’s the fucking money ?”
    Hawley stammered, “T-t-time-locked. The vault. You said on the phone you wanted—”
    Ignoring him, Rice opened the rest of the drawers himself, finding nothing but fat stacks of B. of A. “Greenbacks” in denominations of twenty, fifty and a hundred. Replaying his casing job in his mind, he snapped to what happened. Hawley was pilfering the traveler’s checks. The paperwork he saw him doing was some sort of ass-covering. Seeing the banker outlined in red, he said, “ There’s no cash in these drawers? ”
    â€œN-nn-no.”
    â€œYou’ve been ripping off traveler’s checks ?”
    Shooting a panicky glance at the window, Hawley said, “Just for a while. I’ve got bad gambling debts, and I’m just trying to get even. Please don’t kill me!”
    Rice held the briefcase open, thinking of Chula Medina and twenty cents on the dollar tops. When Hawley started stuffing the rows of Greenbacks inside, he said, “Talk, dick breath. Give me a good line on your scam, and maybe I’ll let you slide.”
    Hawley fumbled the packets into the briefcase, his eyes averted from Rice, his voice near cracking as he spoke. “The Greenbacks are tallied by the week. I’ve got duplicate bankbooks for two old lady customers—they’re senile—and I transfer cash from their accounts to the bank and take it out in Greenbacks. I can’t do it for much longer, it’s wrong, and the paperwork juggling has got to come back on me.” He opened the last drawer and transferred its contents to the briefcase, then held up supplicating hands and whispered, “Please, fast.”
    Rice took in the bank man’s “scam,” feeling it sink in as truth, knowing that Eggers’ pilfer scene was probably something similar—he was a fool to think bank pros would leave cash out overnight. Noting wraparound tabs on the Greenbacks, he flashed a psycho killer smirk and held his jacket open to show off his .45. “I know about exploding ink packets, dick breath. You ink me and I’ll come back and chop-chop your whole family.”
    Hawley shook his head and mashed his hands together. “We do ink only on cash, only on payroll days. Please. ”
    He looked up doglike for instructions. Rice closed his briefcase and said, “Back to your car. Stay calm. Think about your golf game and you’ll be cool.”
    Hawley moved toward the front doors in spastic steps; Rice was right behind. When they hit the street and the manager locked the door behind them, he threw his left arm over his shoulders and shifted the tranq gun from his waistband to his right jacket pocket.
    They approached the Cadillac from the street. Rice pointed to the driver’s-side door, and Hawley got in behind the wheel. Terror hit his face as he saw Rice reach into his waistband, and he squeezed his eyes shut and began murmuring the Lord’s Prayer.
    Rice shot him twice point-blank: once in the neck, once in the chest just below his left collar point. Hawley jerked backward in his seat, then bounced forward into the steering wheel. Rice watched him slump sideways, his eyes fluttering, his limbs going rubber. Within seconds he was sleeping the open-mouthed sleep of the junkie. Rice leaned into the car and poured the pint of whiskey over his chest and pants