DAYLIGHT ROBBERY

DAYLIGHT ROBBERY

The day began like any other, the bank had no more and no fewer customers than any other Thursday in 2020. There were two tellers, a middle aged man and a young woman. The manager sat at the end of the counter where he was able to deal with routine enquiries, only retiring to his office when there was a confidential matter to discuss with one of his clients.

The door opened and a masked man entered. " Everyone on the floor. I have you covered." he said.

There were one or two titters of polite laughter and the others groaned or smiled silently and unobserved; their grins hidden by their own masks. This was a joke which was familiar by now in this time of the Corona virus protections. How many people had remarked that they had never expected to walk into a bank wearing a mask ?

The mood changed when the newcomer said " Raise your hands and don't try to sound an alarm if you want to get out of here alive."

Slowly at first, as though they were being foolish, some customers began to raise their hands. The tellers were quicker to obey because they were facing the masked man who was now pointing a very business like gun at them.

"Come out all of you and lie on the floor!"

The four customers and the three bank employees did as they were told. No one wanted to get shot defending the bank's money.

"You,Blondie." the man said to the teller, the only woman present."Take this and fill it from the cash drawers.Don't anyone try anything. I won't hesitate to shoot."

The young woman stuffed notes and rolls of coins into the old style brown briefcase, just as quickly as her trembling hands would allow. She handed it across the counter and the blue jean clad man took it in one hand and backed towards the door.

"Stay down for five minutes. If anyone pokes their head outside I'll shoot or my driver will. So don't start feeling lucky."

With that he exited the bank.

Once outside he quickly stuffed the gun into his denim jacket as he ran towards a battered old red pickup truck parked close by.

It was just turned noon and lunch hour in this generally farming area where folks ate breakfast early. There were few vehicles and fewer pedestrians, but a man and a woman were just buckling their seat belts in a dark blue Toyota.

" Did you see that ?" Doreen asked.

" See what ?" Wayne responded.

"That guy in the red truck.....follow him !"

" What ?"

" Follow him ! "

Wayne did as he was told .They took off after the truck and did not look back to see the bank door open and a tentative head peek out.

When the gunman left the bank , the manager had sounded the alarm and the middle aged bank teller had moved towards the door.

" Don't !" The manager had yelled. "You heard what he said, his driver will be waiting to shoot at us."

" I don't think he has a partner. if he had he'd have been of more use in here. I think he's working alone."

He continued on his way and slowly opened the door. He saw the red pickup truck and the dark Toyota car, but could not get a licence number for either of them.

"My glasses were too steamed up from the mask." he explained.

The truck headed out of town and towards the highway, The blue car kept a respectful distance and Wayne said they should just appear to be going in the same direction , not chasing the guy. Doreen had explained that he had come out of the bank with a briefcase and stuffing a gun into his jacket pocket. It did not take a genius to guess he had robbed the bank. She thought they should keep an eye on him, tell the police where he was, perhaps get a reward. Wayne scoffed at that idea but told Doreen to write down the number of the truck when they were near enough to read it. Neither of them had a cell phone , so they continued to follow. A few miles out of town the red truck pulled into a filling station , the driver filled the tank and Doreen took the opportunity to write down the number plate. The driver headed for the restroom. Wayne said he would be careful but his bladder was making itself felt. In a couple of minutes he was back carrying the briefcase, which he tossed onto the back seat, and drove off. Ignoring Doreen's cry of "What are you doing ?" until they had put a good distance between them and the gas station.

" I hit him with a piece of pipe, not too hard but I figured that we wouldn't get anything out of this. and when did we ever get a break? The bank has already lost this money, they've got insurance to cover them and no one will suffer. Why not just take advantage of fate and get set up for life ?"

" Wayne, are you insane ? They'll catch up with us....wont they ?"

" I don;t see why they should. We didn't go into the gas station, we were still on the road, and we are still wearing our masks."

"Well......if we are going to keep the money ,I think we should make a new start somewhere out of State, somewhere we ain't known and somewhere they ain't looking for no bank robber,"

Wayne nodded " Put the radio on and see if there's any mention of the bank robbery."

The radio carried news of a bank robbery but with no details yet, except that the robber had been thought to have escaped in a red pickup truck.

" Good luck with that ! " Wayne smiled . " More red pickup trucks around here than black flies in June. "

They tuned the radio to a station playing country music and began to plan and fantasize about things they would do now that they were rich. They headed for the Interstate and argued about possible places to stay.

An hour later, as they kept to the slow lane and more or less ignored the traffic speeding past along the Interstate highway, Doreen tuned the radio to a news station . The news reader announced that the body had been found of the man suspected of robbing a bank earlier that day and getting away with seventeen thousand dollars in cash . Two people in a dark Toyota car were being sought for questioning in this matter.

Wayne did not know how he kept control of the car . He certainly swerved. " I didn't hit him hard ! I swear I didn't hit him hard !" he cried. " We'll have to ditch the car."

" Seventeen thousand dollars ! " Doreen said. " We have done all this for seventeen thousand lousy dollars ! "

ENDS.