The Lipstick Killers

her how to shoot hand guns. Then there was the weekend in Vegas, where they’d almost got married in the Little Chapel by an Elvis impersonator – if they hadn’t been kicked out for being coked-up – and the further lessons at the firing range, this time using automatic weapons. Roxie found a high in shooting a gun that she had only felt previously under the influence of class As.
    Then one fine morning, Chase turned round, and said. ‘I think it’s about time we went to work.’
    ‘I thought you didn’t have to work,’ she replied. ‘Family money, and all that.’
    ‘I kinda exaggerated that bit sweetness,’ he said. ‘It is family money – in a manner of speaking. Just not my family, if you get my drift.’
    She felt a cold hand on her heart. ‘So what kind of work?’ she asked.
    ‘Honey, I rob banks.’
    ‘Christ,’ she said. ‘For a minute there I thought you wanted me on the game.’
    ‘The game?’ he said, then fell in. ‘What whore you out you mean?’ He laughed long and loud. ‘Baby girl,’ he said, ‘I’m a one-woman man, and I expect my girl to be a one-man woman. Though the way guys look at you, I’m sure we could make a dollar or two.’
    ‘Chase, don’t.’
    ‘Sweetie, I’m only kidding. I would never do that to my lady. Now usually I work with a guy, but he got into a piece of local difficulty over a pool game that went all to hell, and he’s doing ninety days on the farm for breaking a guy’s skull with the thick end of his stick, so I need a driver. And I’ve seen the way you drive, so it looks like my search is over.’
    ‘The truck?’ she said.
    ‘Hell no. Something a little less noteworthy. I’ll fix that up. You game?’
    ‘Sure,’ said Roxie. ‘When?’ Simple as that. But she was in love.
    Chase told her that there were two small, local banks that were ripe for the picking. Straight in, straight out, no violence, just show them his gun, and that was that. The bank’s staff were ordered to just hand over the cash. No heroics. A sweet deal. He’d done it scores of times all over the country. Then he told her they’d move on out of New Orleans. Head down to Texas maybe, and live high for a while until they needed more cash, then the same again. His buddy would catch them up, or not. It was up to him.
    When she told him of her family background he roared with laughter again. ‘I knew I’d picked the right old lady,’ he said.
    So Roxie became a bank robber.
    She was young and dumb, and Chase told her it would be easy. She believed him. ‘Piece of cake,’ she said, tilting her chin up and looking at him defiantly.
    ‘Piece of cake,’ echoed Chase. ‘I like that. And you’re the icing on my cake honey.’

23
     
     
     
    The first job was at a branch of United Americas Bank, in a town outside New Orleans called St. Bernard. Chase had stolen a powerful, dark-coloured Chevrolet saloon which blended in with the traffic, plus a couple of sets of number plates that corresponded to the car. One week later they cruised into town during the quiet of a weekday lunchtime. Roxie was at the wheel, with a nine millimetre automatic tucked under her belt and Chase had exchanged his western clothes for a set of dark overalls , his long hair up under a woollen cap. He carried a pump action twelve-gauge shotgun in a workman’s bag.
    ‘Drop me off at the corner,’ he said. ‘Keep the engine running. When you see me go in, drive very slowly to the front of the bank and wait. I should be out within two minutes. I jump in the back, and Sweetie, we’re gone.’
    It all went according to plan. A parking space opened up in front of the building just as she arrived. The door to the bank burst open and Chase came tearing across the pavement, Roxie shoved the back door open, and he dived into the rear seat. She smashed her booted foot on the accelerator and the big car jumped away from the kerb with a scream of tires and smoke from the back wheels, up to the next set of lights which went green as if ordered to by a higher power. Roxie spun the car around the first corner and they were away out of town before the bank’s alarm had a chance to alert anyone to the heist.
    ‘Slow down,’ said Chase from the back seat. ‘Stay legal.’
    ’Did we get much?’ asked Roxie.
    ‘Enough to buy the finest dinner in The Big Easy, and a present for the best girl in the world,’ said Chase as he looked through the back window for any sign of pursuit. ‘Now take the next