The Ravine Page 4

  There was something to Steve’s idea about the crowd at Barton’s being part of the problem, but the fact of the matter was that Tony was pretty much the ringleader whenever they would go out on a petty crime spree. If they knew someone was going to be away for the night, then a few of them would figure out how to break a window, sneak in, and steal anything of value. The problem was that most items were too big to haul away, and even if they were able to snatch a watch or a necklace or some jewelry worth a few hundred dollars, they would only get a fraction of the value. So, even with a little job here and there, Tony and Danny were broke most of the time.

  Despite being out of pocket, when one of the guys would suggest a B&E at a house they knew would be vacant, Tony would usually find a reason to nix the idea. They’d had too many close calls over these stupid little hauls. He had the good sense to realize their luck would run out eventually. He knew the answer was cash. Cold hard cash. But how to get that? A bank job was too risky. Gas stations and convenience stores had cash, but that was almost like robbing a place in broad daylight, and you never knew if the guy behind the counter had a gun or some other weapon. They were bound to get busted or worse.

  Then one day their luck started to turn for the better.

  Tony and Danny were friendly with this tall, skinny, frizzy-haired kid named Jimmy Bagneski, who drove a truck for a local delivery service. He liked to call himself “the Bagman,” because he thought it gave him a certain criminal cache, but to most folks he was usually just “Bags.” Bags was one of the Turner groupies who attended Geauga High back in the glory days, and he still thought Tony and Danny might one day find great fame. Tony thought Bags was an idiot, but he put up with him because he always picked up the tab—and he enjoyed reliving the days when he was the big man on campus.

  One night he showed up at Barton’s as excited as a dog at dinnertime, convinced he had found just the ticket they were looking for.

  “You know that antique shop over in Novelty, the one that sells all that crap like old clocks, paintings, tables, and stuff?” Bags asked smugly. He didn’t know it, but he had just asked a rhetorical question.

  “Yeah, what about it?” Danny said. “What would we do with that stuff even if we could get that junk out of there?”

  “Well, here’s the deal. I deliver to that place every day, and I got friendly with that old bald dude, Jack, who hauls the stuff around for the two old farts who own the place. He says they do a lot, I mean a lot, of business in cash, and that they take it home to their house in Chagrin Falls, and have it stashed there in a safe.”

  Tony started to get interested. “Okay, that sounds good, but how are we going to actually get it out of the safe, if we don’t know the combination?”

  Bags was ready with the answer he knew would impress the guys. “That’s the best part. This guy Jack says he knows the combination, and he’ll give it to us if we cut him in. He won’t help do the break-in, but he’ll give us the combination. Better yet, he says they’re going down to Florida for a few months in January, and if we give him a thousand bucks up-front, he’ll make a copy of the key and tell us the code to the alarm system!” Bags had really done his homework, covering all the bases.

  Tony and Danny couldn’t believe their good fortune. This was going to be like taking candy from a baby. It felt just like the good old days, when the Turner brothers would snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and score a touchdown in the final seconds of the game, striding off the field like the gladiators they were meant to be.

  Danny, Tony, and Bags managed to scrape together the thousand bucks, and met with Jack the day after Christmas behind the bandstand with the cupola at the park in the center of town. Snow was falling, which was something the folks in Chesterland took for granted this time of year. “Lake effect,” they’d say knowingly to one another.

  Jack handed over the key as well as the combinations to the safe and the alarm system. He told them the safe was bolted to the floor in the upstairs bedroom. He also made it clear that he knew for a fact there was at least $50,000 in it, so he expected his take would be a minimum of $12,500 and not a penny less. Of course Tony and his buddies had intended to beat Jack out of his share.

  Tony stared right into Jack’s eyes, giving him his most sincere look. “You don’t think we’d cheat ya, do you?”

  Jack had a few years on Tony and wasn’t about to be taken. “Sure I do, which is why I will be far, far away, out of Ohio, with a rock-solid alibi when you guys do this, and if I don’t get my full cut, then I promise you the cops will be tipped off about you three and you’ll be toast.” If Jack had had an ace on him, he would have pulled it out of his sleeve at that instant. Even Bags could figure out that his cut just went way down.

  “A deal’s a deal,” Tony assured him, annoyed with himself for thinking he could trust a thief to trust a thief.

  Now that they had the address, the key, and the combinations, all they had to do was wait for the owners to pack up and go to Florida. With any luck, they wouldn’t even discover that the money was missing until they returned a few months later.

  The house was on Maple Street in Chagrin Falls, one of the most picturesque, quintessentially American towns in the country. Downtown Chagrin during the Christmas season could have been the set for It’s a Wonderful Life. With the enormous white face antique clock smiling down at the end of the square, you half expected to see James Stewart and Donna Reed arm in arm, viewing the spectacular falls where the Chagrin River had a natural drop of fifty feet, and the icy rush of the cascading water created an immediate hypnotic daze. At that time of year, snow usually coated the ground, and the square was ablaze in colorful lights. For families in surrounding towns, it was a tradition to make the annual pilgrimage to Chagrin Falls to get a taste of old-time Christmas. There was no better way to transform a grinch into a good-natured, patient, and generous man or woman.

  However, the trio of Tony, Danny, and Bags couldn’t have cared less for the festivities and wholesome feeling of the town. They had a plan, and they were starting to get pretty annoyed with the home owners, Don and Linda Grant, for still being in attendance as late as the fifth of January. Jack said they always closed the shop the first weekend after Christmas, packed up the car, and headed south almost immediately. If they didn’t leave soon, there might have to be a change of plans, Tony thought.

  The Grant home was a classic colonial, bracketed by massive brick chimneys on either side with a generous porch that surrounded the front of the house. The landscaping was immaculate, and the Christmas decorations were tasteful, yet meaningful. There was a manger on one side of the front lawn and a reindeer on the other. The ground was covered with snow, which only added to the simple beauty. At eleven o’clock at night, when the Grants’ decorative lights shut off, the nearby street lamp stretched a surreal silhouette of the reindeer that resembled a giant black stallion.

  On that particular night, the nefarious trio was brazen enough to pull up in front of the house just after the outdoor lighting went dark. They sat silently and stared into the windows. They could see the movements and hear the sounds of a household shutting down for the night: the TV flickering off, dishes clattering in the kitchen, pillows being fluffed, a phone ringing, muffled conversation, laughter in the distance. Eventually the lights went out downstairs and were turned on upstairs. There wasn’t much to see, but the simple act of watching from the shadows gave the guys a thrill. Somebody said he felt like Charles Manson, and they all had to struggle to stifle their laughter.

  After all the bedroom lights were turned off, Tony suggested they get out and take a walk around to get the lay of the land. “Make sure you keep your mouth shut,” he warned, “and don’t knock anything over.” They silently worked their way through the front gate and onto the porch. A peek through the window convinced them the Grants had some serious money. This wasn’t the usual type of place they hit; this was a real step up. They noticed that the next-door neighbor’s house turned slightly t
oward the Grants’, and Tony made a mental note of that. He decided that, when they robbed the place, it would be prudent to wait until around three in the morning, when everyone in the neighborhood would be asleep, and not to turn on the houselights.

  They were exhilarated when they got back into the pickup truck. Danny pulled out a pint of vodka, and they passed it around. They knew this was going to be a piece of cake, so they were chomping at the bit to get this party started, and actually put their hands on the cash. The amount of money they were going to pocket in a matter of days would be more than any of them could earn in a year.

  Bags lit up a smoke, while Don Grant, who had gotten out of bed because he thought he heard footsteps on the porch followed by the slam of a car door, looked down from his bedroom window and watched the beacon from the cigarette swirl in the darkness. He thought it was a pretty odd scene, but then the truck drove away, and he shrugged and went back to bed. He and Linda had plans to finish packing the next day so they could leave for Florida by the end of the weekend, and he was exhausted.

  The gang drove by on Sunday afternoon and the manger and reindeer were no longer in the front yard. The three agreed that Danny was the most respectable-looking of the group, so they parked around the corner while he walked up to the front door and rang the bell. If anyone answered, he would just pretend he was looking for directions. No one answered. Tony still wasn’t convinced, so they drove around the front and rear of the house later that night, and it appeared that only a small lamp in the hallway was on, probably managed by the same timer the Grants used for the Christmas lights. Tony felt they needed a little more preparation, so he decided they would wait one more day to do the job. It was a fateful decision.

  Around seven o’clock the next night, Danny, Bags, and Tony met in the Turners’ finished basement, ostensibly to play cards and have a few beers, but the real reason was to review their plans and gather their equipment for the night. Because they had easy access to the house, they would not need the usual glass cutter or other tools to bust a lock. Tony pointed out that they would not need to take the pistol they had stashed in the shed or any other weapons, because the house would be empty and they would be in and out in a matter of minutes.

  Danny shut the basement door and locked it. He went over to the stereo and turned it up a few notches so his parents wouldn’t hear what they were talking about. Bags lit a bowl and passed it to Tony, trying to hold in the hit for as long as possible. Robert Plant began quietly singing “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You,” and the guys were completely stoned by the time Jimmy Page started his famous riff. Before long they were on their feet, playing some mean air guitar.

  “Okay,” Tony said, “let’s get down to business.” They would all dress in dark clothes and wear knit caps. He laid out three flashlights. “We can’t turn on the lights. The neighbors might see, and they’d be suspicious if they saw the lights on. We’ll have to do this in the dark, with just the flashlights.” Tony then took out three pairs of white surgical gloves. “Make sure you put these on before you leave the car.”

  Bags started to get a bit concerned. “What if the neighbors see the flashlights in the house and call the cops?”

  “Yeah, and what if your ass falls off?’ Danny said. “We can do this; we just have to use our heads.”

  Tony and Danny would drive their pickup, and Bags would bring his beat-up Volkswagen Bug. Most important of all, Tony and Danny would bring the two gym bags sitting in the corner for the cash.

  “Okay, we’ll leave at two on the dot, and take two cars over to Chagrin,” Tony whispered in his best conspiratorial voice. “Bags, you park across the street and Danny and me will park in front of the house. When we leave we’ll go in opposite directions, and meet back at your apartment.” As an actual matter of fact, Tony and Danny had decided they would stop at home first, leave some of the cash behind, and then meet up with Bags at his place. However, they didn’t call him “the Bagman” for nothing; Bags had already decided to bring his backpack, so he would get his fair share. By now, he’d spent enough time around the Turner boys to know that honesty was not one of their strengths.

  With the plans laid out, they hid everything in the closet, unlocked the door, and played a few hands of poker. Danny made a point of loudly protesting the bad hand he’d been dealt so his parents wouldn’t think anything suspicious was going on. The Monday Night Football game was on and Howard Cosell droned away in the background. It was just a month ago that he was the first to announce John Lennon’s death to the nation. Now the shock was starting to wear off. When Mrs. Turner came down with bowls of potato chips and popcorn, it looked like a typical Monday night. They’re not such bad boys after all, she thought as she headed back upstairs.

  At roughly the same moment, over in Chagrin Falls, a car was pulling into the Grants’ garage. Kevin Grant and his wife, Missy, had driven from Chicago that day, and were planning to head to Florida on Wednesday. Kevin’s parents had helped him and Missy get a start in the antique business, and every January they too would close their shop and go down to Boca for a visit to escape the Windy City at the worst time of year. The young couple was especially excited because they planned to surprise Don and Linda with the news that they would be grandparents before the end of the year. They smiled at each other as they watched the garage door open, relieved to have arrived safely after their harrowing eight-hour drive along some very icy and snowy roads.

  Once inside, they disarmed the security system, and they sat down to relax and have a sandwich and a slice of the crumb cake Linda left out with a note: “We can’t wait to see the two of you. Don’t forget your bathing suits! Love, Mom.” At around eleven, Kevin checked all the doors and re-set the alarm system. Missy turned off all the lights (including the lamp on the timer), and the couple went upstairs to Kevin’s old room, which now served as the guest bedroom. As they slid under the cool sheets, Kevin said he expected to “sleep like a stone,” and Missy came back with “like a log!” Kevin laughed and gave her a goodnight kiss. Within a few minutes they were both dead to the world.

  At the same time, at around eleven, Tony and Danny got antsy, and decided to do another drive-by just to make one last check. The coast was clear. “Measure twice, cut once,” Tony said as they drove off to their destiny. Tonight would be the night.

  Tony cut the engine as he glided into the space in front of the Grants’ home. A few minutes later, they heard the signature grind of Bags’s Bug coming down the road, and Danny and Tony rolled their eyes at each other as their fear that they might have a weak link in the chain was confirmed. Now that they were there, really there, ready to do the job, much of their bravado was gone, though neither would admit it. There was no turning back now, in any event, and besides, an easier job was never going to come their way. That magnificent fifty-thousand-dollar figure had burrowed its way into their minds and wouldn’t let go.

  Yet the unspoken, or perhaps unrealized, sense that it was all too good to be true hung in the air. If they had taken the time to think things through, they would have realized that the entire plan rested on a stranger whose last name they did not even know, who was now hundreds of miles away, along with one James K. Bagneski, who barely would have qualified to carry their spikes a few years earlier. But greed, ignorance, and delusion kept those nettlesome thoughts tucked away, out of site, and made certain they were delivered to this very moment.

  So, on the short journey from their home to the Grants’ house, as the pickup seemed to drive itself, the brothers sat in silence, each lost in his own thoughts.

  Tony planned to take his share of the cash and move to another part of the country. He wasn’t quite sure where, but a girl he’d dated had moved to Monterey, and the last time they spoke he promised he would come out for a visit. He figured that was about as good a place as any, and now he would have the money to do it. Who knew? Maybe he would stay there for a while, or go someplace else, but it sure was time he got out of his parents’ house. He needed
to start over where no one knew him and had all of these big expectations. He hated the look of disappointment when he told local folks what he was up to these days, which was basically nothing, or nothing he could talk about. Tony knew there had to be something better for him out there, but at twenty-two, he didn’t yet know what it was.

  Danny looked out the window and started to think about the voice. That’s what he called it: “the voice.” This was the voice inside of him that told him what to do and what not to do. He wasn’t sure where it came from, but he knew it was there, knew it was real, and knew it was his friend. When he was alone, driving the pickup or walking in the woods, he would talk out loud to it, but most times it was just there in his head. It really came alive in’78, on the field, when all of a sudden something would seem to take control of his legs and tell him to “cut right, turn left”; he would put his head down and run, and a few seconds later look over his shoulder to see the pigskin about to land in his hands.

  He remembered one day when he was a little kid, maybe around nine or ten, and was in the supermarket. He had a Hershey bar in his hand and was heading for the cash register, when the voice said “just put it in your pocket and walk out,” and he did. “Just walk like nothing’s wrong,” it said. He walked to the corner, convinced the store owner was on his heels, but he did what the voice said to do. He resisted the urge to run until he turned the corner, and then he scooted behind a building. Much to his relief, no one came after him, and he squatted there, trembling, eating his free candy bar. As time went on, things like that became easier, because he came to rely upon the secret guidance he knew was his and his alone.

  Once, when he was doing fifty-five on Mayfield, in a stretch where the limit was thirty-five, he looked into the rear view mirror and saw the flashing lights behind him. He thought, “I’ll make a break for it,” but the voice shouted, “Just pull over; I’ll make sure you get off.” And sure enough, the cop turned out to be the father of the kid who played center on the team, and there was no way he was about to give a Turner boy a ticket. “Just try not to have such a heavy foot, Danny,” he said. The voice knew.