Delay, Distract, Deflect... Run.
A bank robbery goes south when Kara takes her eyes off the prize.
Kara shivered as she stepped through the bank's revolving doors. She pulled her thin strapped backpack tighter against the air conditioning. Her yellow sundress, a last second suggestion from Frank, had turned out to be much like most of his ideas.
The lobby floor was slippery marble, the exposed light fixtures frozen icicles, which made the security cameras upside down penguins. Two polar bear sized guards, equally stone faced, stood on either side of a metal detector leading inside.
The fatter guard held his right ham hock up before she could slide on passed. His ill fitting blazer couldn't quite conceal the bulge of a pistol tucked under his armpit. "Cellphone in the bucket,"
Kara glanced down at her high top chucks, and then back up at the guard's face with a shy smile. "Well isn't that the cutest way I've ever been asked for my number. Brutal honesty: I do currently have a boyfriend, but I'll still accept applications. What's your sign?"
The guard tapped the bucket against the metal arm of the detector. "Cellphone in the bucket," he repeated. He didn't even look like he had heard her, his eyes focused on the busy downtown shoppers visible through the front window.
The other guard, a slender man with a blue hat pushed high enough to showcase a forehead wider than the tundra, at least took the time to give her the once over. His scraggly mustache made him look like he played sax for a ska band that mainly booked bowling alley sets in exchange for free lane time.
"Cellphone. Sure, sure," Kara said. Her backpack flipped around and she flopped it onto a table to dig through. She peered into the lobby of the bank where Frank bounced from foot to foot waiting.
He knew the plan, the two of them had gone over it enough times they could repeat the script from memory, but the first job was always unpredictable. Trust didn't come easy these days. "Let's fucking go already," his voice crackled in her hidden earpiece. "Stop flirting with the uniforms,"
She ignored the jab. Frank hadn't been her first choice. More like only. Her fingers closed the metal canister in her bag, rotating it right side up. "Hit it," she whispered.
The lights in the bank thunked out. Kara slipped a plastic mask over her face, swinging out as she moved. The first guard jumped. Fell choking halfway, noxious gas spraying into his face. The second guard didn't even manage to get out of his chair before he too got a whiff of the gas and fell.
A woman shrieked from the lobby. Several shouts followed. A grunt of pain. By the time the backup generators clicked on, the fight was over. Frank towered over the third and final security guard. Red droplets spattered the guards black tactical vest. Blood streamed from Frank's broken nose, the new angle matching his crooked teeth. His pistol swung out to point down at the man's head. "You wanna try round two?"
"Ladies and gentlemen!" Kara shouted as she walked into the main lobby of the bank.
Not a soul listened to her muffled voice. The tellers were frantically slamming their drawers shut, and twisting electronic locks to secure them. Six or seven older women, part of some church group based on their matching sweaters, spun in circles and screamed like chickens scratching in the dirt. None of them moved to help the guard on the floor.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" Kara tried again, lifting the bottom edge of her mask out of the way. "Can we please..." her voice trailed off. Frank didn't have to speak for her to hear his laughter in his ear. *Rookie mistake. Hostages don't listen.
She pulled her own pistol out and blew a fist sized hole in the ceiling. The room fell deathly quiet, only the sound of plaster raining onto tile flooring breaking the silence. Kara made a show of brushing back her bangs and pantomimed blowing smoke off the barrel of the gun. This time people listened. "Mr. Muscles over there is going to take your cellphone and wallet while y'all follow the rules. Rule one: Stand up? Get shot. Rule Two: Talk out loud? Get shot. Rule three-- you know what? It's been a long day so I'll make it real easy. Do anything that goes viral and you're gonna have a bad day. You stay cool, we stay cool, everyone gets home in one piece, OK?"
Frank kicked the guard underneath him with the toe of his boot. He'd pulled his shirt up to wipe his face, revealing a hairy blob stomach. "Maybe I outta shoot you anyway," he said with a nasally voice.
The shocked patrons, along with the bank tellers, crowded together into a corner of a room. Frank herded them like a sheep dog. The church group was panicking, but they would stay docile at the sight of the gun. The tellers were a different question. They walked in short, quick strides from behind the counter, eyes roving to capture every detail of their attackers. One of them stumbled when she saw the blood covering the guard. Security training doesn't mean much when you see your lunch buddy puddled on the floor.
Kara watched them go, then stepped behind the teller's counter herself.
"Sure I can't shoot this guy?" Frank's voice crackled in her ear. "Makes the rest of this real easy like."
"It's called a robbery, not a 'shoot civilians in a bank'-ery. Stick to the plan,"
"How'm I supposed to keep fifteen crying losers quiet without a good threat?"
"Try singing to them. That outta shut 'em up."
She kicked open the door to the bank manager's office. Dale cowered behind his desk, his balding head dripped sweat across his desk like an ice cold Snapple left on the car dashboard. Wrinkles the size of canyons covered what had been a pressed suit this morning. He fingers pounded a hole through his desk phone. "Hello? We're getting hit! Hello?"
Kara rapped her knuckles on the wooden paneled walls to grab his attention. "You think I'd cut the alarm and not the phone lines?"
For how much money this bank held, the decor felt surprisingly cheap. Industrial gray carpets, molded plywood desk, the only real thing in here was the anger stitched across the manager's face.
He placed the phone back in its cradle. "What do you want?"
"Home plate tickets to Jeter's first game at Yankee Stadium. I'll settle for the vault key card, though,"
"This is a regional bank. My reports this morning said we had just over a hundred grand in cash and bonds," His eyes roved down her sundress and then finally back up to her eyes. "You sure you thought this one through?"
Kara smiled without moving her eyes. "We both know Touchstone Financial made a deposit this morning,"
"Who the hell is Touchstone Financial?"
A high pitched scream echoed from the lobby, fading into a rapid chanted chorus of prayers. Frank bellowed an order that did nothing to quiet them. He didn't have the social skills to keep the hostages in line for much longer without real bloodshed. A bright pink vein popped out on the bank manager's forehead at the altercation. Before he had been sweating, now his body dripped perspiration like a shower at Burning Man.
"Delay, distract, deflect-- Damn, they promoted the right guy. You're doing a great job buying time for a police response. You know what your training doesn't talk about too much?" She clunked her pistol on the desk, rotating it to point the barrel at his blubbery face. "I watched you leave your house this morning in a '22 Range Rover with Florida plates. You have a tee time in 45 minutes at the club and promised your wife Gloria you'd make it this afternoon for your kid's first ballet recital. I'd rather have *you* call her tonight to apologize, Dale. Not a detective,"
His eyes grew wide. He nodded and untucked a lanyard from under his shirt. "Sure... sure. Ok. So, they made a deposit this morning. What do you want to know?"
"Show me,"
He led her down a short hallway, through the safety deposit box room, and into the main vault beyond. In here the sound felt muffled by the yards of steel between them and the world. The manager nervously swiped his key card against an electronic lock. It gave a solid beep, and trio of lights shifted to green.
A dull thump sounded from behind the door as thick steel beams retracted into the wall. The bank manager glowered at her, his hand hovering over the display. "You can still walk away. I'll even give you a five minute head start while I calm the crowd down,"
"You know, yesterday nobody gave a shit what I did with my life. But I walk in here and suddenly every man in my life has an opinion on what to do next. Funny how that works." She reached around the bank manager and pressed the button on the electronic lock. The vault door swung open, the sheer mass causing the air pressure to change.
Stacks of drawers and shelves surrounded the inside walls of the vault. Dale might not have lied about the amount of cash lying around, but Kara only had eyes for one thing. On a pedestal in the center, surrounded in the soft glow of overhead lights, sat a diamond pendant necklace the size of a grapefruit.
"Get in the corner. Make a sound and I'm locking you in here when I leave."
Dale scurried to his corner, folding himself behind a stack of paper boxes with the elegance of a square Tetris block. He clasped his hands tight in front of him and bowed his head in prayer.
Kara wrapped the diamond in a black velvet bag. She grabbed a stack of bearer bonds at random and started throwing them into a paper box. Not enough to slow her down, just enough to make the hit look accidental. Like the diamond had been a lucky break.
Frank poked his head through the vault door, his hair plastered across his forehead. "Police scanner's got some chatter. Time to boogie."
She tossed him the bag with the diamond, grabbed another stack of bearer bonds to shove in the box. "Let's go."
Extraction meant making it to the parking garage next door, where Frank had parked a perfectly average minivan they'd stolen earlier that day. A two minute police response time was ninety seconds more than they'd need.
She hefted the bearer bond box with a grunt and turned to follow Frank out. An ill fitted suit the size of a cement truck crashed into her, pinning her to the floor. Her pistol skittered away from her grasp. Pain lanced through her ribs and stacks of bonds flew into the air.
"Not that smart after all," Dale's hot breath said in her ear as the paper floated down to the floor.
She couldn't fight off this guy with a weapon. Couldn't do much of anything with him on top her. "Hey!" she shouted into her earpiece, hoping Frank hadn't gone back to the lobby. What was his code name again? "Muscles! Fuck, Muscles!"
A shrill tone sounded from the lobby. It increased in volume until it drove the thoughts out of her skull. All but one. Someone had found a backup alarm. Frank hadn't stopped them. He'd already left.
Kara fought to control her shallow breathing. No amount of adrenaline would let her push the weight off of her. All she could do is try to roll.
The bank manager twisted his hips, forcing his weight across her ribs until they creaked in pain. The motion forced her backpack out from under her. Her fingers brushed against the smooth metal canister. Slipped. Gripped. Sprayed the remains directly into Dale's face. He dropped to the side. A thin line of drool spooled out of his mouth.
Her lungs felt like stars burning through her chest. She ripped the mask off her face. Thick hacking coughs fought against the trace amounts of chemicals she'd breathed.. Maybe Frank hadn't realized she was gone? Hadn't looked behind him during the mad dash to the parking garage?
She lunged down the hallway, her legs and feet begrudgingly keeping up with her. Through the safety deposit box room, through the manager's office, back behind the teller's desks and out through the lobby.
The church group had fled outside, but one of the security guards had woozily gotten back to his feet. Kara slapped him in the face with her bag as she passed. He crumpled to the floor. She pushed through the double doors and out into the sunshine.
The minivan they'd stolen burst out of the parking garage across the street. Sparks flew as the Frank skidded it on two wheels, frantically spinning the steering wheel in both directions at once. Kara locked eyes with him as the van flew past. Saw his dismissive shrug. "Better luck next time, kid," he said in her ear piece. The radio went dead.
A numbness filled Kara's stomach, dulling her pain with flat ice. If he'd stopped, or even slowed down... She'd been the one to plan this whole job!
Sirens sounded from down the block, onlookers spilling from nearby stores. The alarm shriek drawing more of a crowd by the second. No time for anger. No time to think. She darted down a nearby alley, tossing her bag into the first dumpster she saw.
A backdoor to a nail salon opened in the alley. She took it at a dead run, shoving aside the petite asian woman with a lit cigarette halfway to her mouth. Rows of nail technicians looked up from their gel manicures.
Kara flew passed them in a blur, stumbling over foot massagers as she grabbed a jacket at random from the coat rack. The front door flew open with a bang. A block away from the bank the crowd was thinner, less invested in the noise and commotion.
Kara wrapped the jacket around her shoulders, slowing her pace to match the other downtown shoppers. Tried to slow the panic slipping inside of her chest and failed. Frank would make it to their hole out spot. He'd take the money and find a new roach motel to hide in. With his contacts in the city she'd never see him again.
That bastard.
Thank god he was dumb. She'd done her research, knew that he didn't run in the right circles to move a rock that size. All she needed to do was wait. Be patient and dodge the police until he poked his head up. Then she'd be able to get revenge.