"William Lynch"
by Michael Dell

CHAPTER FOUR

William slept until close to eight in the evening on Sunday. If Meghan had tried to contact him he certainly didn't hear it. Norm eventually called and the two agreed to scout the Big Boy.

Norm arrived at William's around 11:30. They sat around and watched TV until about 2:00 AM. As expected, the city was sleeping. They didn't even pass another car during the brief six-minute drive to Elby's. They followed the course William had planned for the theft, traveling through South Hadleyville and taking the back street off Covington to arrive behind the restaurant. They pulled into the rear entrance and parked in the back of the lot.

As they got out of Ol' Blue, another car finally made an appearance. But it just kept on trucking down I-79 and headed into town. Everything else was clear.

They walked rather cautiously up to the front of the restaurant, as if any moment a SWAT team would descend from the roof and put an end to their dreams of glory. But there was no SWAT team. No police cars. No people at all. Only the Big Boy.

He stood about six feet tall from toe to hamburger. His red-and-white checkered overalls were straining against his chubby midsection. The lights from the parking lot gave a sense of animation to his grinning facade, eyes dancing with defiance, rosy cheeks full of glow. The challenge was real. He was right there before them, and he was real.

"Let's see if we can lift him," suggested Norm.

William gave the base a quick inspection. It was positioned in a row of shrubs and flowers in front of the main walkway that was set off by railroad ties. It was resting only on bark and soil. "It doesn't seem to be bolted down or anything."

They each grabbed one side of the roughly four-by-four square base. Surprisingly, it felt like the same material used to make the red plastic snow sleds of their youth. They both secured a grip.

"Ready?" asked William.

"Yeah."

Expecting the weight to be much greater, they almost lost control of the Big Boy as they easily lifted him from his perch. Once they regained balance of their burger-toting buddy, they looked at each other with a sense of disappointment. It was supposed to be harder than this.

"Okay, let's put him down," said William.

They gently lowered him into his original position and stepped back to admire him once more.

"I thought it would be heavier," said Norm.

"Yeah, so did I. And you think we'd at least need some bolt cutters or something."

"Yeah."

"It's almost going to be too easy."

They started back towards the car, turning on more than one occasion to steal another glimpse of their prize.

"I guess we shouldn't complain," said William, leaning up against the driver side door and resting his arms on the roof of Ol' Blue. "It'll be a piece of cake. Or, if you prefer pie, a piece of pie."

"There's nothing to it but to do it."

"Well said."

Another car passed. Except this one was different. It had lights on the roof.

"Rollers," warned Norm.

They both stood their ground and watched as it slowly headed towards town. William, feeling somewhat surprised by the fact that the cop didn't stop to see what they were up to, opened his door. "Let's skate."

They exited the way they came, sliding out the back entrance and heading through South Hadleyville.

"I thought for sure he'd stop," said William.

"Yeah."

"That's the one thing that could fuck us up, if a cop just happens to wander by."

"But how many cops do you think are working at night in Hadleyville?" asked Norm. "Two? Three tops?"

William hesitated for a moment before he answered. He squinted at the headlights coming his way. "You mean besides that one."

That would be police car number two. It was heading back towards Covington Street.

Norm turned in his seat to watch the squad car disappear out the back window. "You think it was the same one?"

"Could be."

"He's probably going to circle back and see if we're still there."

"Maybe."

"I still don't think it's anything to worry about. I say we just take our chances. Roll the bones."

"I'll come up with something to limit the potential danger. But I really don't think we'll have any problem getting the Big Boy. We should be in and out within a minute. The tricky part will be unloading it at the Court House."

The Court House was the epicenter of Hadleyville. It was positioned dead smack in the middle of Main Street. Hadleyville was nowhere near the thriving metropolis it once was, but Main Street was still the heart of the city.

The downtown area wasn't flat. Picture it as a long mound of earth with three major roads, all running north and south along the length of the hill. If one started at the bottom of the Eastern side and began to climb, about half way is Maple Avenue. Maple was most famous for housing the YMCA. It also had a parking lot or two. No real cause for fanfare.

Main Street would be at the very summit. This was where all the action was. At the South end of Main was the Police Department and City Hall. At the North end were two grade schools (one Catholic, one public), a church, a synagogue, and the Museum. In between were scores of small businesses, two banks, and, of course, the Court House. Since it was the widest road in town, traffic ran both ways.

Half way down the other side of the mound would be Pennsylvania Avenue. It had its own share of businesses to go along with the Library and the Post Office. It was the second busiest street in town, despite traffic only going one way, north to south.

Two relatively important streets, Otterman and Pittsburgh, intersected these three major thoroughfares. Otterman was two lanes running east to west, while Pittsburgh was two lanes running west to east. These five streets - Main, Maple, Otterman, Pennsylvania, and Pittsburgh carried the pulse of Hadleyville.

"What do you think would be the best route?" asked William. "Should we just roll right up Main?"

"That could work."

"The only problem is we wouldn't want to be exposed too long. I mean, if you're at the one end of Main you can practically see all the way up to the top of the hill."

"True."

"Maybe it would be best if we came up from underneath."

"By the Palace Theater?"

"Yeah, what is that?"

"North Main?"

"No, dude, North Main is just the top part of Main. It's the same street. I'm talking about the one that crosses Main."

"South Main?"

"Okay, the same thing I said before, but in reverse."

"I don't know what it's called."

"Well, let's just call it Bob."

"How about Harvey?"

"Fine. Anyway, if we come up that street..."

"Harvey."

"Yeah, if we come up Harvey it would give us cover, we could see the length of Main to make sure things are all clear as we're crossing, then we could pull over on the downhill side in the cover of the Court House, unload the Big Boy, and split. Plus, that street..."

"Harvey."

"...is just one way. So we'd only have to worry about cars coming from behind us when we're unloading him."

"Are we just going to leave him on the sidewalk?"

"I don't know. I guess it depends how much time we think we have."

"It would be cool to lean him up against the lamppost on the corner. Make him look like a male prostitute."

"I could see that."

Ol' Blue weaved its way through town until it reached the bottom of 'Harvey' Street. They cruised up the slope, crossed Main with no cars in sight, and then pulled over on the backside. They waited a good thirty seconds to account for the time it would take to drop off the Big Boy, then pulled away.

"Oh yeah, that'll work," said William.

"Definitely," agreed Norm.

They were back in front of William's apartment building by a quarter till three. William took solace in the fact that Mark's car was no longer present. He couldn't bring himself to check when they first left, but finding it missing was the highlight of his day.

"All right then, dude," began William as he headed to his building door. "I guess there's no reason to have the meeting Tuesday if we can't get the van right away."

Norm slowly shook his head in agreement.

"Keep after your cousin. Once you get a definite date for the van we can reschedule. Can you call everybody and tell 'em?"

"Sho."

"You the man." William paused, searching for a way to end the evening on a high note. "We got a lot accomplished tonight, though."

"Yeah. Definitely."

"We're gonna make it happen."

"Yeah."

William opened the door to his building and flipped a quick wave with his right hand.

"Asta lavista."

"Tommy Lasorda."

That particular goodbye was a bit they picked up from "Welcome Back, Kotter." It didn't make much sense, but Vinnie Barbarino said it, so that made it cool as hell. A few summers ago, William and Norm used to watch marathons of Gabe Kotter and the Sweat Hogs on Nick-at- Nite. After one such occasion, Norm's car wouldn't start. It had something to do with it being out of gas.

So at two in the morning the duo went to a nearby Uni-Mart to fill up a gas canister. The lone employee thought it was kind of peculiar that two kids would be getting gas in a container at that time of night.

"You guys aren't going to burn anything down, are you?" asked the man with a "Felix" nametag pinned to his red-and-orange-striped uniform shirt.

With the wisdom of Barbarino still rattling around his skull, Norm replied, "What?"

William nearly lost it.

Felix asked again. "Why you need the gas?"

"Where?"

William did lose it.

Felix turned out to be a good guy. They had plenty of chances to get to know him, since it took three trips to the station before Norm's car would start. The sad thing is that Norm again ran out of gas in front of William's house only a few weeks later. Felix wasn't on duty that night.

It was just that sort of thing that had William willing to take part in the Big Boy heist. He somehow felt he owed Norm for all the past memorable moments they had together. If that meant risking arrest for a completely juvenile act, then so be it. It was all part of the game. And there wasn't much time left on the clock.