The Wheelman

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FRIDAY a.m.

I didn’t reform, I lost my nerve. I still think it’s sensible to want money and if you want money it has to be sensible to go where they have it and make them give you some.

—AL NUSSBAUM

LENNON WATCHED PEOPLE MAKING THEIR WAY UP AND down Seventeenth Street as the brisk March air whipped around the buildings. Had he been a smoker, Lennon would have savored the last few puffs before pressing the window button and flipping out the butt. Just one cigarette—something for the geeks in khaki pants and navy blue windbreakers to pick up with tweezers, drop into a thick Ziploc bag, tag, log, then store in their evidence cases.

Maybe someone would get around to analyzing the brand, try to pluck some DNA from the butt.

Part of Lennon would live forever, somewhere, tucked away in the case files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

But Lennon didn’t smoke. He fiddled with the car radio a bit and watched strangers make their way to various duties and diversions. He used to wonder what motivated them—what made them get up every morning, brush their teeth, shower, eat breakfast, kiss a loved one and possibly a child good-bye. That wasn’t for him, and that’s probably why Lennon enjoyed these last moments before a big job. It put everything into perspective. You could either be outside, burning shoe leather, reporting to a cubicle, thinking about a report, whatever. Or you could be inside a car, waiting for your accomplices.

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