Breaking the Bank Read Online Free PDF Page B

donned a disguise of sorts. She located a big square silk scarf buried in a drawer and tied it under her chin, very Grace Kelly. To this, she added dark glasses and vivid red lipstick, a shade she had not worn in so long that it qualified as part of the costume.
    â€œHey, is Halloween early this year?” Eden said, parroting Simone.
    â€œVery funny,” said Mia, grabbing her bag. “If we’re going to Barneys, I’ll need to freshen my look a little. So I’m experimenting.”
    â€œWhatever,” said Eden, clicking the buttons on the television. The remote went missing ages ago, and Mia had not yet replaced it.
    W HEN M IA OPENED the door, she saw Mr. Ortiz and one of the Pomeranians. The absence of the other dog was somehow weighty, a thing alive.

    â€œHello, Mr. Ortiz,” she said. Guilt, sadness, worry, shame shuffled rapidly through her brain like a deck of cards.
    He squinted in her direction; clearly, he did not know who she was. Then, recognition settled on his face, and he smiled.
    â€œSeñora Saul,” he said, inclining his head. “Nice to see you.” The dog minced along the hallway, squatted, and piddled. Mr. Ortiz bent, with difficulty, to clean the mess with a rag, but waved off Mia’s offer to help. Mia waited a moment, and then when he went back into his apartment, she left. She was still thinking about him when she arrived at the bank a few minutes later. But thinking about him and doing something for him were two different things. Mia knew herself to be deficient, but could not shoulder the burdens of Mr. Ortiz’s life. Not now.
    She looked at the row of machines. Several of them were free, but
the machine
was being used by an elderly woman who carried a big umbrella and wore a faded black raincoat, though there was not a cloud in the sky. With an uncertain hand, she punched in the numbers so slowly she might have been underwater. Mia fidgeted impatiently. Should she wait? Wouldn’t it look suspicious, when there were other machines available? The woman did not appear to notice Mia; however, she must have made a mistake because Mia heard her say “Jesus Christ,” quite audibly. The elderly woman consulted a slip of paper in her hand and started punching numbers again, this time at an even more excruciatingly slow pace.
    Mia abruptly turned and walked back outside. She was so nervous she was shaking.
Get a grip,
she scolded herself. She retied the scarf, adjusted the sunglasses, and checked her reflection in the bank’s highly shined window. She was not used to wearing such thick, heavy lipstick, and her lips felt oily and slick. Then she headed up Garfield Place toward Sixth Avenue, turned the corner, and walked back down on Carroll Street. When she zeroed in on the bank again, the woman was gone and
the machine
was waiting for Mia, almost beckoning her to enter.
    Mia had to remove the sunglasses in order to see the screen, but she positioned them on her head, ready to yank down if the need arose. She punched in the password, requested the one hundred dollars, and waited to see what would happen. Again, there was that mystifying change in the screen’s color—first it went light, a silvery bluish color, and then it darkened to sapphire. Then, in the center of the screen, she saw a tiny dot of pure white light. Small as it was, it seemed to glow with an unusual intensity. But before Mia could begin to figure out what it was, it had disappeared, the screen imperceptibly resuming its ordinary hue as the bills issued from the slot. She reached, and ten one-hundred-dollar bills fanned out in her hands with all the glorious promise of a royal flush. Immediately, she collapsed them into a single unit and checked the receipt. There was a debit of one hundred dollars, nothing more.
    T HE FOLLOWING DAY , Mia and Eden took the R train to Barneys. Mia felt insecure enough to have borrowed clothes—a pair of fashionably ripped jeans, a