Vera shuffled into a strip mall bank branch which was flanked by a nail salon and a vitamin shop. The mall had drifted into premature uselessness, with half the stores selling vacancy signs. Vera wore a quilted robe with ample splashes of fur in floral patterns front and back plus on the cuffs, collar and hemline. On her feet were white cotton slippers with velcro straps undone. As she flowed up to a teller window, clumps of streaked grey hair tried to escape from underneath a fraying ball cap.

"I need to deposit this money", Vera said, and pulled a scribbled deposit slip and a fist full of hundreds out from under her robe. "There's nine thousand dollars."

The teller was young, about half Vera's age of fifty. He kept a respectful demeanor as if Vera's massive fur robe and the large quantity of hundreds were homage from a visiting dignitary. He whirred all the bills through a counting machine, side-watched by the lobby customers who by now had formed lines on either side of the fur factory curiosity. 

"You're two hundred dollars short", he said.  

Vera looked around the lobby, squinting at desks, windows, and wall paintings. She gave the demurring patrons the distinct impression she was deciphering what the teller had said and where, exactly, she was. After a total scan of the bank premises she blurted out,

"I gotta pee. Where's the rest room?"

The teller led Vera over to an unmarked door near the end of the counter and showed her into the executive rest room, the hundred-dollar bills still stacked at his window.  Customers fidgeted and rubbed their billfolds and purses, not knowing whether to sympathize, laugh, or run for the exits.

Two minutes had passed before Vera burst out of the rest room and ran towards the teller with her fur robe flying as in the final scene of a romance movie.

"I found the money", she yelled, waving two hundred-dollar bills above her head.

The teller gingerly inserted the two bills into a manila envelope and gave Vera a receipt for her total deposit of nine thousand dollars.

"I need to speak to the manager", she announced.

"I am the manger", he said.

"Well o.k., but that rest room needs cleaning", she said.

At lunch break the bank staff laughed through their cheese burgers at the quizzical deposit show staged by Vera. They settled on Vera's possible Alzheimer's---which was an ironic choice given the advanced deterioration of the mall and, unknown to them, the pink slips they were to receive the following week. 

When Vera's boyfriend, Rick, came over to her house that afternoon Vera had already shopped the cosmetics counter at Neiman's, was freshly coifed, and wore a new wool skirt and tailored jacket.

"How did it go?", he asked.

"The usual", she said, "the teller and the whole lobby thought I pulled that two hundred dollars out of my ass", she said.

Vera had deposited about a half million dollars at the local branches of several banks around the North Dallas suburbs, all in amounts under ten thousand. She was laundering the money for one of Rick's "clients" and her outrageous bedroom act and restroom finale had so far diverted attention away from the large chunks of cash being deposited. 

Usually after one of the branch bank performances the couple would celebrate with dirty vodka martinis and a rumble upstairs. But Vera wasn't in the mood for a party or sex.

"What's wrong?", he asked.

""I don't know", she said, "I have a bad feeling".

On the street a Tahoe had pulled up and two men in drab black suits stepped onto her lawn.

"Too early for Mormons", she said, "...does your client wear a suit?"

"No", he said.

"Oh shit", she said, "get upstairs and hide in the bathroom. I've got to change back into my robe."