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The Last Man: A Novel of the 1927 Santa Claus Bank Robbery

By Thomas Goodman

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Chapter One
Cisco, Texas, 1927

Louis Davis hefted the borrowed pistol again. The weight still surprised him. The steel barrel and cylinder were cold in the December morning, but the longer he held the wood-trimmed grip, the more it warmed in his palm. It felt alive. He felt alive.

He knew the two men in the front seat of the sedan didn’t want him in the heist. They had never said it, but he knew. They wanted someone like them. Hard. Experienced in this kind of thing. Louis didn’t qualify. Back in Wichita Falls, he had a factory job and a wife and three small children. What he didn’t have was money. Or excitement. The man next to Louis in the back seat had persuaded the others to bring him along.

Louis swayed left and right with the motion of the car, synchronous with the rocking movements of the other three. He would prove that they had made a good decision to include him. He raised the gun in front of him, imagining what it would be like to point the weapon at someone. The factory worker pretended to fire it, and he mimed the pistol kicking back on him.

Henry Helms sat beside Louis, amused at the simulated pistol fire. His brother-in-law could use a little adventure in his life. He had loaned Louis one of his own handguns for the job, and all the man would need to do with the weapon was look threatening. Like Louis, Henry had a wife and kids back in Wichita Falls. For their sake, he had tried to find work after his release from Huntsville on an armed robbery charge. No one would hire him, but he had been unable to muster the enthusiasm to show up for some square john job, anyway. Nothing had stirred his blood until he heard the plans for this heist, and as the car reached the outskirts of Cisco, his senses began that familiar sharpening.

Behind the wheel, Bobby Hill slowed the sedan as he passed the city limits sign, and he began the downshift.

Find the gear. Release the clutch. Feel the teeth engage.

He smiled at the smooth execution. The Buick Bobby drove was a beauty. It was painted the midnight blue of a deep lake, and the enclosed cabin and the suspension it rode on were luxurious. The owner was a Wichita Falls oilman who liked to keep it parked in front of his house for everyone to see. Even without moonlight, Bobby had no trouble finding the key under the floor mat. The Master Six beneath the hood wasn’t the fastest engine ever built, but it was plenty powerful to outrun most cars if it came to a chase.

Bobby was nineteen, unmarried, and if there was one thing he had learned in his brief life, it was that cars were easier to figure out than people. Especially the people in the back seat. He didn’t like Louis for this job—too green. And he didn’t like Henry for anything—too self-interested. But the man who sat beside him had decided on them all, and he had never let Bobby down since they’d met in Huntsville. So, here he was.

Next to Bobby, twenty-four-year-old Marshall Ratliff rolled down the front passenger window. He rested his elbow on the frame and smiled as the car passed landmarks familiar to him. This was his town, and the heist was his plan.
Marshall had no family in Cisco anymore. His mother had sold her café and moved to Fort Worth, his brother was in prison again, and his wife had divorced him and taken their two small boys away while he was in Huntsville. That’s where he had met Henry and Bobby. Still, plenty of people would recognize him here. He had planned for this. He raised a white Santa beard to his face and tied the string behind his head.

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