Free Going in Style by Robert Grossbach

don’t mind.”
    “An’ what would you do with her?” asked Willie.
    “Why… the same thing I’d do with any other woman.” Al smiled.
    “I don’t think girls that age are interested much in dominoes,” said Willie.
    “All right, you two,” interrupted Joe. “Let’s get back to the plannin’ here. Let’s not get our minds wanderin’. Plenty of
     time afterwards for wine, women, and song.”
    “Seems to me,” said Al, “the only thing that’s left is the timin’. When you think we oughtta do this?”
    “When do
you
think we can get the guns?” asked Joe.
    “Any time.”
    “Could you get ‘em today, for instance?”
    “I guess so,” said Al. “Sure,”
    “Well, if that’s the case,” said Joe, “then wemight as well go back there tomorrow and make our withdrawal.” He stuffed the rest of the cone into his mouth.
    “Best to get it over with,” agreed Willie. “No sense waitin’ till we grow older.”
    “Al?” said Joe.
    “Sounds good to me.”
    “Okay,” said Joe. “Then it’s agreed. No more waiting around.”

    The Woolworth store had several counters devoted to masks and disguises.
    “The Frankenstein looks good,” said Al, trying on an all-rubber model. “It would certainly scare people.”
    “You wanna scare people, you’d do best leavin’
off
the mask,” said Willie.
    There were only a few shoppers in the store, mostly mothers and children stocking up on school supplies. Joe examined a gorilla
     mask that fit over the entire head. “The trouble with all these here is that they’re too warm, and you probably can’t breathe
     too good through ‘em.”
    “Probably can’t see too good through ‘em either,” said Al.
    Willie had moved around the counter.
    “An’ look at the prices,” said Joe. “You’d have to rob the bank first just to be able to afford these things.”
    Willie returned wearing a fake plastic nose and a big plastic mustache attached to a pair of eyeglasses. “I think these’d
     be pretty good. They’d be easy to carry around, easy to take on and off.” Hepuffed on an imaginary cigar. “Say the secret word, and you win a hundred dollars!”
    “I think those’d be fine, Willie,” said Joe.
    Willie removed the glasses. “Oh, you recognized me, huh?”
    He led them to the display rack, where they removed two more pair of the comic glasses. Then they trooped up front to the
     cash register. Joe placed the glasses before the cashier.
    “Will that be all, sir?” she said. “Three Groucho disguises?” She flashed a warm smile to Willie, which he found unnerving.
    “Boy,” he said to Al, “won’t the kids love these!”
    Al looked puzzled for a second, then said, “Yeah! Oh, sure. Yeah, they will.”
    “Thank you,” said the cashier, as Joe paid the bill. She watched them as they left.
    “See?” said Willie.
    “See what?” said Joe.
    “She’s on to us.”
    “Who? Not the cashier.”
    “Yes. Her. Exactly,” said Willie. “You see her smile? Soon as the news hits the papers about three men in Groucho disguises
     robbin’ a bank—bang! She tells the cops.”
    “They must sell hundreds of them things every day,” said Joe. “And there are thousands of stores, and she don’t know us from
     a hole in the wall. Don’t let your imagination run away with you, Willie.”
    Willie frowned. “Well, we shoulda gone in separately,” he said. “Or, better yet, we shoulda each gone into a different store.”
    Joe nodded. “All right, you got a point.”
    “But it’s too late.”
    “Yeah,” said Joe. “It’s too late. We’ll know better next time.”

    That afternoon, Al, carrying a folded
News
under his arm, slowly climbed the six steps to the porch of his nephew’s house. He peered through the screen door, saw no
     one inside, and decided to knock. He was not a member of the immediate family; it would not be right simply to walk in. He
     rapped lightly. “Kathy?”
    A man appeared from the kitchen. He was heavy-bearded,