The Bank

I went into my home office and fumbled with the keys to my safe. I took out my gun and loaded a clip into it. I cocked it to make sure there was one in the chamber and left the house. I got into my Mustang and quickly drove over to the freeway entrance ramp. I didn't have to wait very long before I saw Angela's Toyota screaming past me. It must have been doing about eighty miles per hour. Since Tanya had just told me that Angela had been hurt, I was sure it wasn't her driving it. Angela also would have been heading for the hospital so there was no way she'd have driven past it to get here.

I screamed down the ramp and onto to the freeway after the car. I was angry as hell and I had the wrong idea in my head. When I started chasing the car all I could think of was that the same bastard who'd ruined my marriage had hit Tanya. I really didn't care what he may have also done to Angela. She'd made her own fucking bed so she deserved to lie in it. But for putting his hands on Tanya, that bastard was going down.

Catching the Corolla was frighteningly easy. Eighty was probably as fast as that car could go. I was doing over a hundred when I hit the bottom of the ramp and a hundred and thirty before we'd gone a half mile. I pulled up behind the Corolla and swung out to the left. Jerry tried to speed up but I had far more power than he did. I pulled up next to the car, lowered my window and waved at him with a big smile on my face. He waved back. He obviously wondered why I was smiling at him.

He was probably still wondering when I put two bullets in him and stepped on the gas. My Mustang shot forward as the Corolla slowed and then lurched into a turn as Jerry lost control of it. The car flipped over several times in my rearview mirror as I braked and pulled over to the side of the road.

The car I bought Angela when we were still in love was now a fractured smoking piece of crap on the road. Well, let's face it. Even before it had been wrecked it had never been a great car anyway. It was only a way to get from point A to point B. I don't think there are guys who dream of someday owning some crappy econo-box car. As several cars going in the opposite direction slowed to look at the wreck, I noticed Jerry's arm moving as he tried to drag himself out of the wreckage.

I started walking quickly towards the wreck. As I got there, I noticed that several other motorists were on their way to the car. Jerry had crawled out of the car by then.

"Get me away from here b'fore it blows," he gasped. I could see that he was bleeding from his shoulder and biceps muscle on the driver's side. My two shots had hit him but they were nowhere near fatal. I pulled my gun back out and stuck the barrel in his mouth. I shot him twice more, making sure this time. There was blood and brain tissue all over me. Just to make sure I emptied the clip in his chest as all of the would-be rescuers ran back to their cars to try and get the fuck away from the crazy man. Like I said, "Some mother fuckers just have it coming."

I calmly walked back to my car and sat on the hood. I took the empty clip out of my gun and laid both of them on the ground a good distance away from the car. I pulled out my iPhone and called Steve. I told him where I was and that he should come and arrest me. He told me to stop talking crazy until I told him what I'd done and why. He said that he was going to drop Angela and Tanya off at the hospital and he'd be there in less than ten minutes. I asked him not to bring Tanya with him. I didn't want her to see me. Then I sat back to wait.

It didn't take long. True to his word, Steve was there in less than ten minutes. I got down off my hood and turned my back to him and raised my hands in the air, the way the cops always want criminals to do on TV.

"Lucas, stop acting stupid," said Steve. "Tell me what happened."

"That bastard hit Tanya," I said. "Steve, she was so scared on the phone. She thought...She was worried about dying. I just snapped. I love her so much. I knew he'd have to pass by here to get away. So I waited for him and chased his car down and shot him. But the bastard still wouldn't die. So I made sure he could never bother Tanya again." He nodded.

"Yep, you made good and God damned sure of that," he said. "Where's the gun?"

"It's over there on the ground," I pointed at it. "I took the clip out of it." He ran over and got the gun and threw it in the trunk of his police car.

I held out my hands for him to cuff me. "Will you put your hands down," he snapped. Just then Tanya drove up and launched herself at me.

"Tanya, go back to the hospital, please," I begged her.

"You don't get to order me around," she snapped. "We're not married yet."

"See, she's fine," said Steve. "Now go home. Or better yet go to the hospital, I'm going to need you there when we question that lying bitch you used to be married to. I have a feeling that she had something to do with this."

"But when are you going to arrest me?" I asked. Tanya got between me and her uncle.

"What are you going to arrest him for?" she asked.

"Nobody is trying to arrest him Tanya," he said. "God damn it. Get a grip, both of you." Tanya put her arm protectively around me.

"Somebody owes me some kisses," she said. We both heard her uncle calling the DA.

"Yeah," he said. "Nope, he didn't quite get away. I'm still going to have to wait until Mrs. Blue gets out of the emergency room and Jimmy wakes up to get the whole story about how this whole thing started but Shorter is dead. Yep, I'm sure. They don't get much deader. It looks like somebody stuck a gun in his mouth and blew the top of his head off. Then they unloaded about four or five times in his chest."

"Six," I whispered.

"Make that six times in the chest," said Steve. I held up my hand and pointed to the arm and shoulder.

"Yeah they shot him in the arm a couple of times too. It looks like they really didn't like the bastard." He looked at me and whispered for me to burn the clothes I was wearing and flush the ashes down the toilet and then clean the entire bathroom with bleach, twice.

Tanya was looking at me like I was crazy. Her uncle told her to burn her clothes too because she's gotten some of the blood on her when she hugged me.

"Of course, I have a theory," said Steve into the phone. "The Feds just caught that other bastard from the bank robbery. That still leaves one and possibly more of them out there somewhere. They probably got the idea that Shorter had ratted out the guy we caught in Arkansas. You know how these people handle loose ends, especially rats."

Steve gestured for us to get out of there. "Yeah the witnesses are all from out of state. We can't go by anything they've said. None of them described the same guy. They all said the same thing about what happened though. They drove by and saw a car flipped upside down. A guy walked up to the car and just started shooting the guy in the car. None of them hung around to see what happened after that."

"Unfortunately, none of them came in to fill out statements. Like I said they were just random people driving down the freeway who stopped to help. I'm guessing they kept driving after calling in."

"Well, no. Our recording machine didn't record the calls. We didn't know what was going on because we were so busy with what happened at the station. Why don't you come down there later while we look into it?" Then he hung up the phone.

"Uncle Steve what the hell is going on?" asked Tanya.

I started to say something but he held up his hand in the universal," Shut the fuck up gesture."

"You heard what I told the DA," he said. "Some guy shot the shit out of Shorter. You guys go home and change clothes. Then come to the hospital. We'll all get to the bottom of what happened at the station and then we'll talk afterwards. "He looked me straight in the eye.

"Lucas, do not say a word about what happened to anyone. I mean it. Oh alright, you can tell her. But don't talk about it around anyone. The three of us will discuss this later tonight. And try to act surprised when you get to the fucking hospital, okay."

Tanya followed me to my house. She had clothes there to change into. We followed her uncle's instructions and burned and flushed our blood covered clothing. Then we cleaned the bathroom and showered together before putting on fresh clothing. Of course, the shower took us nearly an hour and we needed another shower once we got done.

We drove to the hospital together and went to the room that Angela had been put in. Angela's injuries were all mostly just superficial bruises. She did have several lacerations and contusions and a big ass bump on her head. The baby was fine also.

The Sheriff stood over her bed glaring down at her while Tanya and I watched from across the room.

"Mrs. Blue, if you start any of that amnesia or memory loss shit, you are going straight to jail this time," he said.

"I was such a fool," she said. "And it's cost me everything."

"We know you're a fool," snapped Steve. "Let's just hear the story."

As usual, Angela started out trying to make it seem like she was a victim in the whole thing but the facts didn't add up. Dave, the other deputy, arrived and we watched the security video of the incident. There was no sound in the video because the ACLU had lobbied against certain violations of the prisoners' rights to privacy, but the video itself was clear.

Steve had to hold me back when they came to the part of the video that clearly showed Angela herself was the one who'd clubbed Tanya. I was almost beside myself when I saw Jerry begin to take off Tanya's shirt.

The DA decided then and there to charge Angela with assault and battery against a law enforcement officer and aiding and abetting a fugitive to escape. When the toxicology screens came back he was sure he'd throw in more charges for drugging Jimmy. He'd also decided to reopen the charges against her from the bank robbery since he was sure that she'd schemed with Jerry to plan the whole escape in exchange for Jerry's testimony that she hadn't been a part of the bank robbery and Ted Granger's murder. That convinced him even more that she probably had been.

It looked like Angela would be going to jail for so long that she'd die in prison and then would have to be buried on prison grounds to serve out the rest of her sentence.

She started singing like a canary to try to get a lessened sentence. She finally plea bargained everything down to a flat fifty years behind bars in a medium security facility. She'd still be eighty five when she got out but at least she'd have hope. In a medium security facility, she would also be allowed regular visits from friends and family, so hopefully she'd be able to see her child grow up.

In exchange for the sentence, Angela, with nothing to lose, told the truth. I was shocked at the level she'd stooped to. When she told us how she'd made Jerry promise to kill Tanya, I wished that I'd still had my gun.

When the Sheriff and the DA were done with her, Angela asked if Tanya and I would stay for a few minutes to talk to her.

The Sheriff reminded us that we had a talk of our own and that he'd be out at the house early the next morning. We nodded.

I sat down in a chair and just stared at the woman I used to be married to.

"Lucas, I need to ask the two of you a big favor," she began.

"Why the fuck would we do anything for you, bitch," I snapped. At that moment I could just as easily have killed her as had a conversation with her.

Tanya calmed me down and wrapped her arm around me. She understood after the talk that we'd had exactly how far I'd go to protect her.

"Why did you try to get that bastard to kill Tanya?" I asked. "Why couldn't the two of you just run off to Mexico together?"

"Because I didn't love him," she said quietly, trying to hold back her tears. "Through all of this, Lucas, you're the only one I loved. I wanted us back together more than anything on earth. There was literally nothing I would not do even now to accomplish that. But over the past few months, it just seemed like every new development, every scheme I tried only served to push us further apart and you and Tanya closer together. Nothing I tried worked."

"I tried to tease you into seduction by letting you see me naked," she said. "All it did was goaded you into having sex with her. Nothing I tried worked. I love you Lucas and I want you back. Finally, I started to see that there was no way I could ever get you back while she lived. She loves you at least as much as I do, maybe more. She was always asking me stupid questions about how she could make you happy and what you like. She had to die. But that dumb ass Jerry only wanted to get a chance to get his dick into her. I don't even know why. He was terrible in bed. It's like those dogs that chase cars down the road. What will they do with the car if they catch one?"

Tanya sat down on the bed next to Angela and held her hand as Angela cried.

I just looked at her like she was crazy.

"What do you want us to do Angela?" she asked.

"When my baby is born," said Angela. "I want the two of you to raise it. Maybe when he or she is old enough, you could come by for occasional visits."

"For the first few months, Angela, they'll probably let you keep the baby in the prison with you," said Tanya. "That will give Lucas and I time to discuss it."

"We don't need time," I said to Tanya later. "Why did you even tell her that? That bitch has snapped. She's out of her fucking mind."

"Because, I understand her," said Tanya. I just looked at her rolled my eyes.

"Women," I thought.

Tanya and I drove home and went straight to bed. It had been a rough day. While I showered, Tanya changed the sheets on the bed. We were soon fast asleep wrapped up in each other's arms. We slept halfway through the morning the next day and didn't actually wake up until Steve knocked on the door.

"Okay," he said, in his loud booming voice. "Neither of you knows anything about what happened to Shorter. Neither of you were anywhere in the area when it happened. That's our story and we're sticking to it. Any witnesses who call or come by the station will be told that we're already looking for the guy and don't need any further testimony..."

"But..." I began.

"But nothing," yelled Steve. "Shorter was a con man, a murderer, a bank robber and a possible rapist. Remember," he said, looking straight into my eyes. "He was going to try to have sex with MY niece, YOUR woman while she was knocked out. He had it coming."

"Okay," I said.

"Good," he said. "What did your ex want?"

"She wants us to raise her child for her," I said. "And bring it by to visit her, ugh."

"I hear you," said Steve. "That will be one fucked up kid. It has a mother who's a pathological liar and solicits murder and assaults police officers. It also has a father who's a bank robbing, murdering, rapist. That kid's got criminal or psychotic DNA on both sides of its gene pool. Together, they'd be like some kind of homicidal version of the Addams family. It's too scary to think about."

"Tanya told her we'd think about it," I said.

"Why?" Steve asked his niece.

"Because Angela really isn't that bad," said Tanya. "I can understand her and how she feels. She was more a victim in this than a criminal. She started out this normal housewife who just made a mistake. Shit just started rolling downhill and picking up speed until she was doing things that she never would have done."

"But she could have gotten off at any time," I said. "I gave her more than enough money to just start her life over after we divorced."

"But that's just it dummy," said Tanya. "You didn't offer her the one thing that she wanted. The one thing that could have ended this whole thing was never on the table so she couldn't quit. All of her retarded schemes were because of that. In her place, I'd have done the same thing. Lucas you and I haven't been together for nearly as long as you were with Angela, but I would already do anything and I do mean ANYTHING, to keep us together."

"Uncle Steve, I have some bad news for you," she smiled.

"If it's bad news why the hell are you smiling so much little girl?" asked Steve.

"Because it's not bad news for me," she said. "It's bad news for you. I'm retiring as of now. I'm getting married and I have to start getting my house together. I have to redo a lot of things around here to make it more MY house with MY husband. You know, get the other woman's style out of here."

"Who are you marrying?" I asked smiling.

"You dummy," she said. "Remember last night when I told you that I didn't have to listen to you because we weren't married yet? You never denied that we were getting married. So that can be taken as a defacto proposal in some states. You especially never denied it in front of the county Sheriff, who is an elected official, so that makes it even worse."

Then she stepped up on her toes and kissed me. She brushed her hair out of those big gray eyes and pouted. "Don't you want to marry me?" she asked in a tiny little voice.

"More than anything," I said, as Steve started laughing.

"God she's already got you by the balls. Congratulations, invite me to the wedding."

We got married about six weeks later. It took that long for Tanya to plan the wedding and invite what looked like everyone in the state. We settled down over those first few months and were very happy. We were far happier than I'd ever been with Angela. Tanya did visit Angela in the Michigan women's prison several times but I could never bring myself to go.

A little while ago I learned that Angela had given birth to a son and had named him Lucas for some reason that was beyond me. I guess it couldn't hurt anything since we still really didn't know what his father's real name was. And Jerry wasn't around to complain anyway. What shocked me even more was that Tanya started making changes around the house. It looked like she was setting up a nursery in one of the bedrooms.

I didn't say anything because I knew that if she'd made up her mind, I'd give in. I loved her too much to deny her anything that would make her happy.

She even forced me to go and visit Angela last week. She showed me Angela's baby and made me hold him. I had to admit that he didn't seem like some kind of homicidal maniac. But then I remembered that kid from the Omen seemed like a normal baby at first too.

We sat there in front of Angela with Tanya holding the little demon child and me staring at him out of the corner of my eye waiting for him to grow a tail or start making shit float in mid-air.

"Angela, we can't take him," said Tanya. "But you'll be happy. I'm keeping my promise. I did find someone who really wants to give him a good home."

Tanya got up and walked over to the door and brought an old woman into the room. The woman seemed familiar to me. Then I recognized her. It was Angela's mother. She'd be the perfect person to bring up Angela's child. Since Angela's father had passed she was lonely and the child was her own grandchild."

As we drove back home, I was relieved. I was sure that Tanya had been ready to take Angela's brat and in some ways maybe I was a little sad that we hadn't.

"How did you like my solution?" asked Tanya.

"It was perfect Honey," I said. "It was the best way out of a terrible situation."

"You don't think I'd have been a good mother?" she asked.

"You'd have been the best mother in the world," I began. "But the kid would still have resented you. He'd have felt cheated and teased by you."

She looked at me in shock. "Why would he have felt like that?" she asked.