The Con
A fat, bald man in a Santa Claus
suit stumbled out of Jimmy’s with a six-pack, and some Marlboro. His Santa hat was stuck to the bottom of his
left boot heel along with a grotesque glob of ABC gum.
Uncle Jimmy’s was a gas station/convenient store or
something that I’d checked out pretty well all weekend. I figured this one wouldn’t be too hard; I
mean, it was everything new guys like me could want: small, isolated, not too
busy at night, and run by some old, white-haired geezer that couldn’t tell time
off a digital watch. It was paradise,
and today was payday.
It was ten-ish and I had been hiding
there in the bushes of Sixty-Second and Chestnut since eight-thirty wearing all
black from head to toe (including the bra and panties for kicks), waiting for
the perfect moment to embark upon my first, simple assignment.
“Get in, get control, get money, get
out,” I repeated to myself. “Get in, get
control, get money, get out!” I was so
sure I was going to complete my mission successfully that I already ordered a
two hundred dollar necklace for myself as a congratulations gift. I mean, how hard could it be anyway?
Dino had done a good job last week trying
to scare me out of going through with the whole thing. He’d pulled out the sexism card on me, and a
bunch of the guys bet that I would be too chicken.
“You don’t have speed, Angie. You gotta have speed,” Dino told me.
“I have speed. I’m the fastest runner here, and you know it,
fat boy.”
“You’re not strong enough, and your
voice is not as demanding. You’re a
woman for crying out loud, you can’t rob a high-profile bank!”
“You know what, when the time comes
I can and will rob any bank you like.
Yeah, I’m a woman, your momma was a woman.” I had a pretty headstrong, smart mouth, a bad
attitude and a ‘women can do anything men can do’ outlook. My favorite color was anything dark, and my
favorite things to do were fan myself with greenbacks, buy expensive things and
make others jealous of me.
I was a thief, a robber, a burglar.
And on top of that, I was a
narcissistic, feminist with a lot of I’m-better-than-you pride.
Most of the guys that worked for old
Mockowitz, the most notorious thief of them all, were in it a long time,
including Dino, and all of them were men.
I was his first experiment with a girl, and the only reason why he hired
me in the first place was because I hussed and fussed my way in using sexism as
my tool. And most of the guys went
through three weeks of training, but I fussed my way through that too. I had a lot of lip, criticized whoever messed
up on a job, and repeatedly said that I could have done much better.
I never really knew how old
Mockowitz got so rich and infamous. He
and his three brothers were known for their unprecedented, intelligent ways of
robbing people blind. I never saw him
steal a dime, but he sure could spend one.
Working for the man was an honor beyond all honors.
“If you screw this up,” Dino said,
“you’re gonna take so much freaking heat for it. Quit while you’re ahead. I’m telling you right now; women weren’t
meant to rob stores, they were meant to shop in ’em.”
“You’re just mad ‘cause you know
I’ll do this thing better than you could in a month. I’ll steal more money than Bush stole votes;
then we’ll see who was meant for robbing and meant for shopping,” and that was
the last thing I said to Dino as I pushed him out of the way and headed to my
apartment.
That was last week.
Now I was alone in front of Jimmy’s, my first
robbery assignment. Dino begged me to
allow him to tag along for back up, but I said no. I wanted to do the whole thing on my own and
show those fools the strength of a woman.
But now that time was rolling around, all the things Dino had said to me
began to make sense and scare the living crap out of me. Getting caught, trying to outrun cops and cop
cars all the way to the getaway car on sixty-fourth street, jail, life in
prison, being beaten like Rodney. What
the heck was I doing? I was a woman; I
couldn’t do this. I wasn’t fast enough;
I wasn’t strong enough. I stood there
scared and confused beneath the daunting, tall trees, the dark, hissing skies
and the roaring, zooming cars.
“I’m gonna go home,” I whispered to myself. “I’ll say I…” I couldn’t go home. I couldn’t let them win their stupid little
bets. Women can do whatever men can
do. Women are strong too. Who am I kidding? I saw an ant on the floor and shrieked. It was a big one. “No, I’m doing this,” I said aloud. “I’m doing this crap. I’m doing this.” A hint of confidence trickled down my spine
and that was enough to boost my hard-to-hinder pride, and I stood upright with
my moneybag in one hand and the paper bag to cover my face in the other hand.
Jimmy’s stood a couple of yards away,
so I crept up close to the door, now that most of the costumers had gone, and
looked in. It was your average
convenient store with the fifty-cent candies in the front and the sodas in the
back. What got me fired up was the fact
that it was relatively empty.
“Get in, get control, get money, get
out,” I mumbled as I put the paper bag over my face. I stepped up to the front with one hand ready
to grip the gun in my back pocket and the other hand opening the door. Just then my heel decided to get caught in
the section that separated the ground from the checkered floor of the
store. Both of my hands flew to grab
hold of the door so I wouldn’t fall, as a result the gun came crashing out of
my pocket and the bag on my face curved to the side. I had to step back outside the store,
readjust the bag and collect the gun. B
the time I was ready to reenter the store, I spotted all of the people that
were in it, fleeing away in horror having already saw me.
Well, somebody felt like an idiot.
“Everybody messes up on their first
time,” said some stranger as he leisurely dawdled out of the store with no
trace of fear patting me on the back.
What the…?” Who the heck was
that? Anyway, I brushed it all off as
the nobody walked away, and I said a quick prayer.
“Lord, please help me steal
successfully. Amen.” I was not going to give up and let Dino shove
it down my throat. Again, I stood erect,
inhaled deeply, then dashed into Jimmy’s full force.
“Freeze! Nobody move!”
Nobody was there except for me and the old man behind the counter.
“Don’t shoot me,” he whimpered. “Please, I’ll give you all you want!” I’d remembered I had a gun and then brought
it out to point at him. He put his hands
up quickly!
“Put the money in the bag!” I
yelled. The man began to reach for a red
button behind him. “Don’t even think
about it, Grand Pa! Put the money in the
bag and you’ll live! Do it! Now!”
The man was frightened by my voice which made me proud of myself;
however, the man grew exceedingly terrified and grabbed his left shoulder with
his right hand and began to rock back and forth gasping for air.
“Help!” he wheezed at me. “Heart…heart…at…at…at”
“Oh my Goodness! You’re having a heart attack!” I took the bag off of my face, which was a
dumb thing to do. “What do I do? I don’t know CPR or ACLS or FDA or anything!”
“Help…help…. help…. me!” He hunched over the counter and looked as if
he were about to vomit somebody out of his mouth.
“Look, I’ll help you, if you open
the register.”
“Ah!
Dying! Dying!” he yelled. That was when it hit me. If I don’t help this guy, he will die. If he dies, I won’t get the money and Dino
will make a big deal out of it, so I’ve got to save this guy’s life, so I can
rob his store then kill him if necessary. The man pointed to something in the back in
the medicine section, indicating that he wanted me to get it. I dropped everything, ran to the back, and
looked through everything not knowing what to get.
“What do you need? Laxatives?
Aspirin? Metabolife?” He began to hack and pant even louder and
with more excruciation. I began to throw
things off of the shelves.
“Triaminic? Tums? Flintstone Vitamins? Midol?”
I slipped the Midol in my pocket for later. “I don’t know, Tough Actin’ Tinactin? My doctor says Milanta? Excedrin, stronger, longer? The man was no longer wheezing and panting.
Silence.
Hush filled the air as I remained
stiff in the back of the store. “Jesus,
the man is dead,” I whispered. How was I
going to open the cash register?
I apprehensively waddled my way back
to the front almost in tears. But to my
surprise, I didn’t see a dead man hunched over the counter. No. I
saw a happy, healthy, old man behind the
counter standing in front of a red button that was flashing. And not only that, the man had pulled down a
protective, glass window that I hadn’t noticed before. But to top it off, the man was holding my gun
in a little plastic baggy.
I stood there speechless with my left
hand over my mouth.
“You little prick! You set me up! Man, when I get a hold of you, you’ll be
begging for a heart attack!”
“Cops should be here any minute,
darlin’,” he said with a nasty, little smile.
“Oh, man!” I shouted. I grabbed my moneybag and paper bag and ran
for the door. I’ll see if I can get to the
getaway car before the cops arrive.
Locked in. Locked in!
The stupid, old man pushed some
button that locked all exits! I ran to
the side doors. Locked.
“Let me out of here, right
now!” I ran up to the protective window
and banged on it repeatedly! “Let me
out! Let me out, or I’ll mess up you and
your social security before you can say bingo!
Let me out!” The man stood
comfortably behind the counter leaning against the wall behind him. His calmness began to slowly pick away at my
sanity. After attempting to tear down
the window and the doors with no success, I began to throw everything off of
the shelves. I danced around like a
maniac tearing open bags of chips, pills, juices, everything. The man remained calm. At one point I tripped over one of the sodas
I had opened, and that was when I spotted the camera. I sat there on my pretty, little bum staring
at the camera that sat by the ceiling and listening to the faint laughter of
the old man.
Time went on.
I sat on the floor in the potato
chip section amid a horde of opened bags eating a thing of Pringles and smoking
a cigarette the man finally allowed me to have after I’d begged for ten
minutes.
“Where are the cops anyway, Jimmy?”
I said with a puff.
“Usually takes ‘em about….um, let’s
say thirty to thirty-five minutes from the time I push the alarm.”
“Hmm, well, wake me up when they get
here,” I said ready to give up.
“Will do, little lady.” Little lady?
What? No way was I getting
caught. I was nobody’s little lady. I stood up fast and ran for the counter
begging for the man to let me out. I
didn’t know what made me jump up like that until my brain later registered the
sound of police sirens.
“You’re on camera you know,” he
snickered.
“Look, I’ll do anything,” I pleaded
with water in my eyes. “Anything!”
“Anything?” Jimmy asked.
“Yes, anything. Long as it’s not too lewd. Just let me out of here and destroy that
tape!”
“Alright, I’ll do it.”
“What?’ The sirens got louder.
“You can act like you were just a
customer, and I pressed a false alarm.
But for a small fee.”
“Ok, ok.” The sirens were so close the windows began to
vibrate.
“Alright then…..Gimme all your
money! Always wanted to say that!”
“Fine!” I slid my wallet through the small whole in
the window. He opened it up and
confirmed money.
“I know you’ve got money in that
bag, princess,” he said pointing to my moneybag, and I did. The bag was used earlier that day in other
robberies and had not yet made it back to the base; is was my job to get it there. I didn’t care at the moment. I picked up the bag and slid the money
through the whole in the window stack by stack.
It had to be about twelve thousand dollars or so. The man humbly accepted the money with much
thanks then pushed a button. “Ok, you’re
free to go.”
Yes! I ran to
the door faster than Milly Vanilly’s demise and swung it open like a pimp slap.
Hello!
Four police officers greeted me at
the doorway. Stupid me, I was supposed
to act like a customer! The policemen grabbed me. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say…”
“What’s all this about? I’m just a paying customer! Let go of me!
Tell them, Jimmy?” I cried.
“Ma’am,” said one of the
officers. “A pack of Midol just fell out
of your pocket. Show us your receipt.”
“I left it in the store!’
“Show us the change, ma’am.”
“I paid with exact change! Tell them, Jimmy. Tell them!”
The officers looked to Jimmy. This was it.
The moment. Jimmy had my life in
his hands along with my money.
Jimmy nodded his head at me and gave
me a reassuring smile. “This woman,” he
began, “attempted to rob my store armed and vandalized my property. You can dust this gun here for fingerprints,
and I have it all on tape.”
My jaw dropped, and from that moment
on, my life was over.
Two months later:
I find out from the Auburn State Prison grape vine that the man that owned Jimmy’s was a man named James W. Mochowitz.