“Too mundane.”
“Well, you’ll think of something. There. Let us return to town. We should be in perfect time for our bank robbery, and then I shall have a little spending money.”
“Most people,” said Shadow, “would simply take it from the ATM.”
“Which is, oddly enough, more or less exactly what I was planning to do.”
Wednesday parked the car in the supermarket lot across the street from the bank. From the trunk of the car Wednesday brought out the metal case, a clipboard, and a pair of handcuffs. He handcuffed the case to his left wrist. The snow continued to fall. Then he put a peaked blue cap on, and Velcroed a patch to the breast pocket of his jacket. A1 SECURITY was written on the cap and the patch. He put the deposit slips on his clipboard. Then he slouched. He looked like a retired beat cop, and appeared somehow to have gained himself a paunch.
“Now,” he said, “You do a little shopping in the food store, then hang out by the phone. If anyone asks, you’re waiting for a call from your girlfriend, whose car has broken down.”
“So why’s she calling me there?”
“How the hell should you know?”
Wednesday put on a pair of faded pink earmuffs. He closed the trunk. Snowflakes settled on his dark blue cap, and on his earmuffs.
“How do I look?” he asked.
“Ludicrous,” said Shadow.
“Ludicrous?”
“Or goofy, maybe,” said Shadow.
“Mm. Goofy and ludicrous. That’s good.” Wednesday smiled. The earmuffs made him appear, at the same time, reassuring, amusing, and, ultimately, lovable. He strode across the street and walked along the block to the bank building, while Shadow walked into the supermarket hall and watched.
Wednesday taped a large red out-of-order notice to the ATM. He put a red ribbon across the night deposit slot, and he taped a photocopied sign up above it. Shadow read it with amusement.
FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE, it said, WE ARE WORKING TO MAKE ONGOING IMPROVEMENTS. WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE TEMPORARY INCONVENIENCE.
Then Wednesday turned around and faced the street. He looked cold and put-upon.
A young woman came over to use the ATM. Wednesday shook his head, explained that it was out of order. She cursed, apologized for cursing, and ran off.
A car drew up, and a man got out holding a small gray sack and a key. Shadow watched as Wednesday apologized to the man, then made him sign the clipboard, checked his deposit slip, painstakingly wrote him out a receipt and puzzled over which copy to keep, and, finally, opened his big black metal case and put the man’s sack inside.
The man shivered in the snow, stamping his feet, waiting for the old security guard to be done with this administrative nonsense, so he could leave his takings and get out of the cold and be on his way, then he took his receipt and got back into his warm car and drove off.
Wednesday walked across the street carrying the metal case, and bought himself a coffee at the supermarket.
“Afternoon, young man,” he said, with an avuncular chuckle, as he passed Shadow. “Cold enough for you?”
He walked back across the street and took gray sacks and envelopes from people coming to deposit their earnings or their takings on this Saturday afternoon, a fine old security man in his funny pink earmuffs.
Shadow bought some things to read—Turkey Hunting, People, and, because the cover picture of Bigfoot was so endearing, the Weekly World News—and stared out of the window.
“Anything I can do to help?” asked a middle-aged black man with a white mustache. He seemed to be the manager.
“Thanks, man, but no. I’m waiting for a phone call. My girlfriend’s car broke down.”
“Probably the battery,” said the man. “People forget those things only last three, maybe four years. It’s not like they cost a fortune.”
“Tell me about it,” said Shadow.
“Hang in there, big guy,” said the manager, and he went back into the supermarket.
The snow had turned the street scene into the interior of a snow globe, perfect in all its details.