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.

Marshall nudged Bobby and pointed. “Let me off at this next block. I’ll walk down Main to the bank while you get the car set.”

He got out and tucked his pistol into the waist of his trousers. As the car pulled away, he arranged the folded potato sack over his gut. It would serve as padding for his costume and then as a bag for the bank’s money. Just as he closed the festive red Santa coat and buckled the wide black belt around his middle, someone behind him called out.

“Well, it’s been a while since I’ve last seen you.”

He whirled. It was George Carmichael, a police officer who had jailed him on several occasions for transporting illegal booze. Marshall was at a loss for what to say, but the policeman grinned and said, “Merry Christmas, Santa.”

The officer had not recognized him. The fake beard and Santa costume had worked. Marshall attempted a mock-grandfatherly voice. “Merry Christmas to you, my boy.”

Carmichael poked Marshall in the gut, just missing the gun in the waistband. “Today’s December 23, Santa. You ain’t got but two days to fatten up.” He chuckled and walked on.

Marshall let out a quiet sigh but kept an edgy eye on the officer until Carmichael turned right at the next corner and strolled toward the police station. Marshall continued straight on Main.

Bobby eased the sedan up the wide alleyway between Garner’s Department Store on the left and the First National Bank on the right. Marshall had instructed him to pull forward until the front bumper reached the sidewalk so no one could block them in. He turned the key, and the engine shuddered to a stop and began to tick as it cooled.

In the back seat, Louis observed how Henry checked the chambers on his pistol and stowed it in his waistband. He did the same thing with his borrowed handgun. Finding nothing else of Henry to imitate, Louis went over Marshall’s instructions in his mind again. After Marshall entered the front door, they were to follow in after him. None of them would be recognized in Cisco except Marshall, so no bandanas. Marshall said if they had masks as they entered the bank, it would alert anyone in the street that a robbery was underway. He had assured them they wouldn’t be in the lobby long enough for anyone to be able to describe their features later.

Louis was to enter last and lock the lobby door. He only needed to point his pistol at the customers and look like he meant to shoot anyone who got out of line. That’s what Henry had told him, anyway. After Marshall emptied the safe and the cash drawers, they’d all escape out the alleyway door in the bookkeeping room. They’d be in the car and out of town in three minutes.

In the front seat, Bobby drummed his fingers on the wheel as he waited for Marshall to appear. On a cable pole in front of the bank, the corner of a poster fluttered in the breeze. He squinted at it, and then stopped fidgeting. The corner that had come loose curled over part of the printing, but he saw enough of it to know what it announced.

Wanted. Dead Bank Robbers.

Just two months ago, the Texas Bankers Association had promised a five-thousand-dollar payout for anyone who killed a bandit—and “not one cent,” they added, for the capture of a live one. Five thousand dollars was twice a year’s pay for a working man. The bankers’ incentive had generated considerable interest. And controversy. A deputy sheriff was on trial for making a false bid for the prize. He had convinced four drunk laborers to stand near the bank in Stanton, and then he shot them and reported he had killed them during a robbery. The plan fell apart when two survived.

When Marshall first laid out his plans, Bobby had raised a concern about the reward. But Marshall just clapped Bobby on the shoulder and laughed. He declared that with a wheelman like him, they’d be far away before anyone outside the bank could respond.

Commotion from his left took Bobby’s mind off the poster. On the sidewalk in front of the Buick, Marshall appeared in his Santa suit and fake white beard.

Children surrounded him like a cloud of fleas on a dog.

Marshall herded the children forward, trying to respond to their questions in a hearty voice. “No, Santa don’t have no candy . . . Well, now, you’ll have to wait till Christmas morning to find out what I’m bringing you . . . Sure, Santa knows where you live.”

He then straightened his back and put his hands on his hips. “Run on, now. Santa’s got work to do.” As the children reluctantly dispersed, he nodded at the men in the car and entered the bank.

Inside, he blinked a moment until his eyes adjusted. It was as he remembered. No more than thirty feet wide and less than a hundred feet deep. The cashier’s office and a cage for two tellers ran along the south wall to his left. The office was separated from the bank lobby by a four-foot-high wall that met the teller cage. To his right, a white marble countertop was mounted along the north wall for customers to complete their forms. A door straight ahead of Marshall led into a back room for bookkeepers, and that room contained their escape door to the alley.

There were four men in the lobby. All of them would have recognized Marshall without the Santa Claus disguise. There was Marion Olson in his three-piece suit. He was enrolled up north at Harvard but must have come home for the holidays. Olson was chatting with Alex Spears, the bank’s cashier. He still wore the same round owl-eyed glasses that Marshall remembered. Spears had provided bail after Marshall’s arrest for the Valera bank job, along with a lecture on how Marshall’s mother didn’t deserve that kind of heartbreak. Only one of the two stations in the teller cage was occupied. Mr. Jewell Poe was taking a deposit from Oscar Cliett, a local grocer who had not bothered to remove his store apron.

Four men. Perfect.

Spears grinned at him. “Good afternoon, Santa.”

Marshall opened his mouth to respond to Spears’s greeting, but he was distracted by the creak of hinges. The door from the back room opened, and two little girls walked into the lobby. They gaped in surprise at the Santa Claus and grinned at each other in excitement.

He peered at the shorter one, trying to figure out why she looked so familiar.

Spears tried his greeting again. “So, Santa, are you here to make last-minute payroll for your elves?”

“Uh-huh,” Marshall mumbled, trying to muffle his voice under the fake beard.

The front door opened behind him, and when he turned around, it wasn’t his men. A mother and her daughter had come in. The child walked straight toward him, holding out what looked to be a Christmas wish list in her hand.

The lobby was getting too crowded. And those two kids coming from the back room meant there had to be people in there, too. Maybe the robbery wasn’t such a good idea.

The lobby door rattled as Henry, Bobby, and Louis entered.

Alex Spears nodded at them. “Afternoon, boys.”

Henry left the greeting unreturned and walked to the customer side of the teller cage. As he walked, he pulled a pistol from his belt and pointed it at the grocer and the teller.

“Hands up.”

The little girl who had come into the bank with her mother screamed, and she gripped Santa by the arm, huddling behind him for protection.

Marshall couldn’t stop things now if he wanted to.