He turned to face her, straightening his tie, picking up his two Browning Hi-Power model 9mm’s , off of the dresser, doing the usual function check, and loading the ten extra clips with hollow tips bullets. The thunder outside of the window, off in the distance, shook the windows like an earthquake. Car alarms went off one at a time until it was a symphony of whoop-whoops screaming out and into the gray sky. The TV in their room entertained itself with news broadcast from MSNBC. The U.S. was close to going to war, the enemy made the first strike, but all Laura cared about was him. Trying to make sure they could see tomorrow when, for a short time after the World Trade fell, tomorrow had been in doubt of ever coming again.

He finished loading the hollow tipped bullets into the remaining clips, storing those clips in the pockets of his trench coat. He sat down on the bed next to Laura, grabbing her by the shoulders, rage building in his voice as he spoke,

“We had a good thing runnin’. This job was gonna be the one that put us all on easy street! It was all planned out. Down to the last detail. It was perfect. One of us got a job at the bank with the fake I.D. and social security number supplied by our contact man. Our man on the inside would case the place, taking down everything we needed to know about the schedule of the bank security, alarm systems, people in charge, personality types that we would have to handle with employees. Who was most likely to be trouble and who wasn’t. He would get a feel for the layout of the joint. Though we had the floor plans, it was better for us to have a first hand view of the interior just in case the bank was renovating or the plans were out-dated. We covered every base. Making it a broad day light job was a gamble, but we kept it simple. Only safety box’ that were on the list our contact man had supplied us were to be hit. Any money we could take would be ours. And with having an inside man on the staff a month ahead of the heist date, we knew which box’ to hit for the most cash and jewels other than the ones the contact man wanted. It was perfect!”

He released her shoulders, squeezing them so hard that he left red hand outlines. She sat silently. Not saying how much his grip hurt. He continued, standing at the window, staring at the rain. Steam filled the glass from his breath. The TV played a commercial about how good one company’s SUV’s were compared to your standard SUV from some other company.

“When we hit the bank, we hit it with precision! Our inside man, Larry, had everything set up and waitin’ for us. He cut the buttons for the alarms that the manager or tellers would activate during a robbery. Cameras were reconnected to a 24 hour VCR that was running for two days before we hit. When we did hit, the recording was played over the system. When the cops went to examine the tapes they would get nothing. Not even a good look at our inside man. He wore prosthetics on his face to hide himself, and had created a personality to fake out his co-workers. Larry was an artist when it came to a scam! Everything was set. This was a six man operation. We went in like the wind, and once we were positioned, hit like an H-bomb! Me and Corey played crowd control while Leo and Mark hit the counters and the safety deposit box’. Maxi stayed with the car. Larry played the hostage we’d take with us to make sure no one got wise and tried to be the hero. It all took nine minutes to pull off. Maxi bought the car around. Corey grabbed Larry, playin’ up the hostage bit like the ham that he is! Everyone went out the front first, with me leading the back. Everyone got in the car and I was just about out the doors when a security guard decided to play Bruce freakin’ Willis and took a shot a me. I didn’t see him, but, Maxi saw him and climbed out the drive side window and put a slug between his eyes! I never---never did get the chance to thank him ya know.”

His face reflected a pair of sad eyes in the window.

 

RETURN TO INDEX