Pistol Fanny's Hank & Delilah (6 page)

Pistollette—that’s what Hank decided to call her—nodded her head after all the men were down on the ground. The music came louder and Hank was finally able to recognize the song. Ray Charles was singing,
Hallelujah, I Love Her So!

The show really began then.

Boom Box (the one in control of the radio) clapped her hands. One of the other she
-
devils jumped up on the counter and started doing complicated flips. She back flipped and held out a bag for teller girl, and teller girl started dumping. She front flipped and back flipped with the grace of a highly trained acrobat. And she did it in time to the music. Hank was going to call her Acrobat. That’s as creative as his mind would allow him to be in that moment.

The man next to Hank lightly jabbed him in the ribs. When Hank looked at him, he mouthed, “
What
?” Hank just shrugged. They may have been trained killers, but this was much more than that. This was a show to go right along with the fear and uncertainty of it all. It was like they were making a mockery of the crime.

And they might have all been voluptuous, but they were all graceful, nimble, and stealthy, almost like feminine cats in the darkened night going after squeaking male rats. Or classically trained thieving ballerinas who happened to also tap dance to the sound of robbery.

The Antsy she-devil, who had now moved the teller closer to the entrance and exit doors of the bank, was actually tap dancing! Their steps were light, so light, you didn’t know they were around you until they were looking you in the eye. Every step was planned, premeditated, and nothing was wasted. Not even movements. For him it was movements, but for them it was precious seconds.

Once Hank was able to regain his wits, he realized just a very short amount of time had gone by. No longer than two minutes, maybe. One of them had disappeared into the back room. He was going to call her Explosive, because he had the feeling she was going to blow something up.

He had to try to identify them in some way. They had to have something, anything, just one small detail that would set them apart, give away something they never meant to. Nothing is ever perfect, and right on the outside of perfection rests the secret to entrapment—there had to be
something.
There’s no such thing as the perfect crime.

Their bodies were the same, their heights all the same. It seemed like the inches of their heels had them standing at the same height. They didn’t speak. They spoke in Morse code, and if he was a real idiot, he would believe the voice on the radio belonged to one of them. But Hank was no idiot.

Hank concentrated on their shoes. He knew exactly what a size six looked like because June-bug wore that size. She had him bring some of her old shoes down to Goodwill, and when he was unloading the boxes, he put his hand in the shoe. He knew the measurements of his hand to the heel.

It wasn’t everything, but it was something. Hank could work with that. He held his hand up and tried to line it up with the she-devil in front of him. Curly elbowed him in the ribs. Hank’s eyes flew up and met Pistollette’s. Pistollette—two L’s for the guns she carried, and Ette because she was just so damn feminine with her manly guns.

In that exact moment, Hank’s world, his time, started to crawl forward. He was approaching that black hole where time starts to creep, just before you’re swallowed up and it stops all together. Something about the way she moved was dangerous, lethal almost. As she came closer to him, his heart started beating rapidly, and he broke out in a cold sweat.

Hank found that even though he should have been terrified of the gun pointing at him, the gun was the least of his worries. It was her proximity, her lethal movements, her sly walk. Such easy grace she emanated during a grave time. She was spicy, sweet chocolate to him for some reason. He could’ve sworn he smelled it in the air even.

She came even closer, and when she slid down to meet his eyes, the way she moved, so silkily, so smooth, forced him to close his eyes in response. She was a physical interpretation of ecstasy. She moved him so, like the hot-blooded lover does before they claim your heart.

When he opened his eyes, hers were staring back. Deep brown, just like he had first thought. But he knew that wasn’t the true color of her eyes. He didn’t know how he could be so sure, but he was. With all that he was, he was sure. This was a part of her, but he was sure there had to be more.

She pointed to his hand, still in the same measuring position, the feeling of disappointment rolling off of her in a powerful way. Not even an impatient gesture, or a fierce look, and Hank could feel how calm but deathly she was.

Hank wasn’t worried about that. He wanted her to stare at him just like he was sure he was staring at her. It was like the core of his being was being pulled toward this very moment of his life. He had a feeling she could be the period at the end of his story. Everything around him shook and shimmied, and yes, it could have been the explosives blowing up the back room, but he was sure it was her. She was rocking him to his center. She was blowing him up, piece by piece, so that his gravity was forced to adjust to a pull he wasn’t familiar with.

The explosion finally woke up Mr. Speckle and he pressed the panic button in his office. He quickly hid, his fibrous hairs and ancient eyes the only thing visible from under his desk.

Pistollette pressed the gun into Hank’s chest. Anxiety and something else took over…not fear, not exactly. It was her, Pistollette. She was getting achingly close to him. He wanted to touch her, to say, this isn’t all of you, why are you doing this?

She pushed even harder, like she could read his mind. She was testing him, Hank thought. Her eyes whispered,
I dare you
. Hank leaned into the gun, pushing his heart against the barrel even further. Dare accepted. One better, he was challenging back.

Hank shivered. He took a deep breath and his world went around and around, right around her. He had to steady this untamed want he had for her. He wanted nothing more than to slam her back against the wall while he kissed and loved her wildly, until the weapons she hid behind went crashing to the ground.

“Isn’t it funny how you’re the one with the gun to my heart, and I believe you’re the one who needs saving.” Hank’s tongue trembled with the words.

Pistollette kept the gun steady, but she dropped her eyes to the floor. She had a tell. Just like he had one, his eye, and for some reason, even though he knew it was beyond ridiculous, Hank believed her tell was just for him. And in that instant, he knew his heart was gone. She stole it when she looked away from him. Wherever she went in the world, a piece of him would always go with her.

Pistollette looked to the left and then to the right, and then once more at Hank. She gracefully stood and moved back toward the rest of the bank-robbing women. Hank couldn’t keep his eyes away from her. He refused to. How was it that at the most inopportune time of his life, he felt like the situation turned into a cornucopia of blessings? For Hank, it was like turning plain ole water into the finest of wines.

Acrobat flipped once more, landing on the floor, and then she flipped once more and went right into a split. In a split second she was up again. Boom Box lifted the machine again. Out came the graceful voice, but this time the melody in the foreground was deeper, solemn, country.

Thank you for your time, we must go now, but we sure hope you enjoyed our show! One last parting gift before we go, but you might want to cover your ears, ’cause it’s going to blow!

Hank stuck his fingers in his ears, as did all the men. He didn’t know what was coming next, but when he saw Boom Box start to throw tiny Dum Dum suckers in the air, he had a pretty good inclination. The Pistollette magician was about to start her parting gift.

It didn’t even seem like she was watching them as her pistols shot the tiny suckers out of the air. Every time one would go up, it would blow up. Heaven Almighty, it was a Dum Dum! Hank could hardly see them when they went flying up in the air, and she was shooting them like they were big birds in the sky.

Antsy threw a card at her. Pistollette shot it clean out the air. It ended up in two pieces, one of the pieces drifting to the floor, landing right at Hank’s feet.

He quickly picked it up. He almost dropped it when he took a good look at it. Drawn on the card was half of a man with a woman, and hanging over the man’s head was half a scale of justice.

Hank knew the other half of the card was another woman, and the other half of the man, along with the other scale. The man was split directly in the middle, caught up between the two women. Hank tucked it in his pocket.

Pistollette started to spin those guns so fast you had to blink your eyes to see her fingers moving. Both hands going at once, she was spinning them forward, backward, sideways, just to start over and do it all again. Her fingers seemed like they were dancing.

If it were even possible, the rhythm sped up even faster. The motions of the guns were almost a blur until she stopped, acting like she was going to hand the guns over. The butt of the gun was facing the crowd, the barrel facing her, before she spun them once more to right them.

The girls blew kisses. Boom Box started clapping, pointing to the men, urging them to join in. Pistollette twirled the guns around her fingers once more. She smoothly slipped them back into their holsters, nodded at Hank, and then she was gone. She disappeared into thick white smoke like an apparition of the most beautiful form, in the same formation she and her gang of sisters arrived in, like they were never even there in the first place.

Hank knew she was there, though, because he had never felt so alive. He had never felt so alive since the day before Elvis never appeared out of that cloud of smoke.

It took a split second for Hank to truly grasp the fact that as quickly as she came, she was gone. He looked around the room once. The men were whispering amongst themselves, still on the floor. Hank had to be sure that what he saw happen truly did. And it had. The cameras were smoking. His heart was in flames.

He stood up abruptly and ran for the door. He followed their exit route, and when he made it out to the street behind the bank, he stopped for a moment, looking around.

A gust of wind blew past. Hank could have sworn he smelled the bank, traces of old money in the air. He saw something tumbling down the street, a crinkled and worn scrap of paper. It was coming toward him like a tumbleweed dancing in the desert.

One more gust of wind and it swept the ground before ballooning right in front of him. He grabbed it out of the air as it drifted. It was an old, faded greyhound ticket. The date was the day that Judge Pilgrim and REO had been killed—it was from Greenwood, Louisiana headed to Tupelo. It was identical to the one still tacked to Wild Thang. Hank didn’t have time to pull his wallet, so he tucked it inside his pocket.

He put his hands on his hips and took a deep breath. Another parking lot sat across the street, with a little alleyway in front of it. He didn’t know why, premonition maybe, but he ran for it. Hank didn’t even bother to look both ways. He was running with his head down, until he ran into two hefty breasts.

They knocked him back and he bounced when he hit the ground. When Hank looked up, he saw standing over him a woman with eyes the color of melted caramel and skin the color of deep gold. Her hands were on her hips, and she was dressed in a nun’s habit. He could see a little fuzz peeking out of the side of the wimple; her hair matched her eyes and skin. And she was the tallest woman he had ever seen.

“Heaven Almighty,” he whispered.

Hank went to apologize. She held up her hand. He closed his eyes and shook his head. He thought maybe the woman was a figment of his imagination. When he reopened his eyes, there she was, Pistollette, standing next to the nun. The mask was still on Pistollette’s face, but she was in the same outfit as the tallest woman he’d ever seen.

The tall lady helped him to his feet. Now that he was standing before her, he saw that Pistollette had to be around 5’10” with those heels, because he was 6’0”. He looked up into the face of the “nun.” She had to be a good 6’5”, easily.

Pistollette shook her head at him. Hank assumed she was disappointed with him for following her. A low whistle sounded from behind her. She didn’t even bother to turn and look. Pistollette held her hand up, her fingers splayed. Hank twisted his body and saw another she-devil behind them. When she saw him, she fled, her footsteps silent.

Pistollette tapped on tall lady’s hand. They were speaking in code again. Tall lady nodded and cleared her throat.

“My name is Rotunda Grinder. You now have five seconds to answer two questions.”

Hank nodded. Pistollette took her thumb down. She was counting down.

“Are you sure about this?” Rotunda asked, staring Hank in the eye.

He nodded. The fingers kept ticking.

“What’s your name?” Rotunda asked.

Hank quickly cleared his throat. He had one more second to go. “Hank Rivers.”

“Well, Hank Rivers, I sure am sorry about this, this being our first and last meeting and all, but…”